New York is impossible to take for granted. The day we arrived, the city lay under an apocalyptic sky. Fires from Canada had turned the air heavy and sour, and people seemed to walk under some kind of spell. The next day it was New York again: the pace picked up, the sky turned blue, we crushed thousands of steps, and people spilled over Central Park in the early evening. Some played volleyball, some lay on the grass, some ran, walked their dogs, played music in the sweetness of an early summer evening. It looked like a collective exhale.
There’s a coffee shop on the Upper West Side where we’d go in the early morning, before waking the kids, to start our daily excursions. The only table outside was our spot. From there we watched people passing by on their way to get coffee after a run. A dog came up and gave us a hug (literally). The air was still fresh, before the heat crept in. In the middle of so much motion, I was at peace.
New York is loud and alive, and it never lets you sit still in your own head for long. I keep coming back to this city that exposes me to every declination of humanity, to remind me that I’m only a small, infinite part of it. That is humbling, and refreshing, and it never stops amazing me.
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