Finding pleasure in doing nothing in New York
(and getting serenity in chaos)
New York this time was for finding the missing pieces, adding to residuary experiences, and generally lingering wherever I was able to.
And I did, I really did.
On Small Island, I sat in its tiny amphitheater overlooking the Hudson River. In the lovely Le Pain Quotidien inside Central Park, on a bench on High-line Park, on a bench in DUMBO in Brooklyn watching a bridge hold onto its history with sprightly aplomb, in front of a Rothko in MOMA with tears in my eyes. In the large chaired lot in front of Macy’s between West 34th and 35th Street, which they hyperventilate as 'The World's Largest Store'. Caution - USA thinks their world starts and ends IN USA.
At Strawberry Fields in Central Park
A view from DUMBO in Brooklyn of two iconic bridges
But I always start with people gazing and end up writing. But then I keep looking up, afraid to lose out on seeing someone or something really interesting. And there's just no dearth.
More than any other city I've visited, New York throws variety in mind-boggling multiples. Dress, language, attitude, colour. The stream is as variegated as - well, the variety of food on its streets. There is so much to revel in.
Why is NY a magnet?
It is expensive - 3000$ a month for a strictly middling apartment anyone? It is bursting at its seams - the roads are strewn, the pavements are chipped, and it is loud and chaotic.
I guess, in its kernel, at the center of its madness, it gives opportunity. It breeds dreams. It generates hope. It throws up stories continuously of people who have made it. Though the large number of stragglers one sees, literally at every hour of the day or night, does tell stories of lives which couldn’t catch up with their dreams. Or of those who'd just given it all up for food coupons.
But I love how the city keeps throwing space at its people to just sit down and ponder, or chill. There are parks with benches, road cut-outs with chairs, marked-out stretches on main roads with round cocktail tables. And, for god's sake, if one thought this wasn't enough, a rich philanthropist goes and makes an artificial island on the Hudson, with just a park in it.
The gorgeous Small Island on the Hudson
I'm just a tourist wandering around, taking rickety undergrounds and walking broken roads, but I get the sense of the city. Maybe it's just me which the city reflects back to me. Showing as much of itself as I love, as also that which I miss.
Coming from the absolute sleepiness of Savannah in the south, I knew New York will be like a blood rush. But in spite of the rush and the commotion, as I sit with a coffee, and pigeons at my feet pecking at the chanachur which I keep throwing at them, I know this drop of quietude is what I prefer, rather than an ocean of serenity.
I have tickets to a hit Broadway show, and I will be sitting inside a fantasy world in just a while. And I simply cannot be more excited. Whilst for some, a large city's continuous energy exhausts, for me it is energizing. Even whilst only sitting around and feeling grateful for the March nip in the air.
Even whilst doing nothing, I'm more alive in a city which is forever alive.
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Enjoyed reading your NY experiences. Are you in NY now?
And in the midst of this incredible experience , you remembered and called me from central park . I would have forgotten the world . Thank you . Respect . Love