Wow, what an encounter; can only happen in New York! That thought has visited me about a dozen times now, since I moved here. Last time, just yesterday, after I finished my 3-hour-long Spanish class. I was savoring a new book by Elizabeth Gilbert (freshly fetched in the New York Public Library) in a Japanese cake house tucked in the lapels of my favorite place in New York - Bryant Park. The book was wonderful, not the content, mind you, as I haven’t started to fully comprehend what it was about yet, but the pages, the cover, the format – so much beauty in one simple object. Suddenly, I’ve got distracted by a notion that someone was standing over my table…
Well, not going to tell you the rest of the story, but this
happens here a lot. You meet people, who you were secretly hoping to meet. You get insight or advice delivered by
strangers and it leads you ways you weren’t sure how to hop on to begin with. You
make meaningful connections in the city, where millions of people are carving
their journey, and you know what, people are friendly and often helpful here.
So, what else Lyuba, besides meeting strangers, you’d ask?
Well, it’s still summer here, if you asked me. True, the
leaves are turning yellow and some have gracefully fallen on the asphalt. I
notice more and more of them every day dancing with the wind when I am out
running. So, technically, it’s autumn, but for us, Icelanders, it’s just the
hay day of summer. It’s +15 for the argument’s sake!
Then, there is endless choice of food and endless choice of
cool places. It’s draining on your wallet, I must admit, and, possibly, on your
digestive system too, but, what the fork, you only live in New York once (and
generally live for that matter). So I’ve been exploring and educating my
gastro-esthetical senses (hence the Japanese cake house). To shush the alarm, my most-visited are
vegetarian and vegan places still, so I am not devouring funky animals just
yet.
My favorite discovery though is enormous assets of the New
York Public Library that I have a free access to (except for when I overdue
books, which happens often). I always loved reading, or rather the thought of doing
it, as I never had time really. I even have started a book club back in
Iceland, but was struggling to finish something in a month. Now, I have time
and I have all the books I want, I even have a reading sofa and gazillion cafes,
where reading is appropriate, so I do that a lot. I can almost feel how I am becoming
smarter by the day, don’t you? (joking J).
Anyway, it’s a real gift to catch up on reads that I was piling into my to do
list all these years.
And, you know what, I’ve also realized that you don’t have
to move to New York to have any of these. You just have to pause and notice
what’s around and give yourself a permission to admire it. Give yourself permission
to un-busy yourself and start living, instead of doing life, because a place is
just a metaphor, and life is happening right now.
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