Splash No. 249 - New York, Again
New York, Again
I’ve been traveling a lot recently! Just a few weeks after my trip to Japan, I made my way to New York for the wedding of a close friend and former roommate. The wedding was beautiful, and it was the first time seeing one of my friends get married. I didn’t expect to get emotional, but seeing my friend up there in his tuxedo waiting for his bride to arrive made me tear up. How beautiful it is to see the people you love happy.
Outside of the wedding, New York was the perfect city for me to be in a time where I’m trying to center my life around other people. In the past, I’ve always been bad about seeing other people when I travel, often assuming that no one wants to see me, especially if we haven’t seen each other in a while. Yet, somehow it felt easy to make plans with people I hadn’t seen in years, even at the last minute.
And because of that in the course of 5 days in New York, I managed to socialize with more people than I typically would in a month in San Francisco, even if I tried really hard. Perhaps it helps that I was seeing people from college that I had a longer relationship with. Maybe it’s how connected New York is, and how using the subway makes it easy to get everywhere. In San Francisco, it feels so much harder to see another person, because Ubering often feels like the only option to get anywhere.
There’s always so much to do in New York, but after spending so much time there over the years, I moved fairly slow, mostly walking around and taking in Williamsburg and other areas of Brooklyn that I didn’t know as well. I browsed stores and bought nothing, and explored multiple Muji stores as is tradition. As usual, it was electrifying to feel the energy of the city, especially as everyone found their way outside in the abnormally hot weather. Sitting in Washington Square Park at 10pm and seeing hundreds of people hanging out and listening to music is truly a singular experience.
Visiting New York, and Tokyo before, remind me of how small San Francisco is. It’s a city, but has 10% the population of New York. It’s a city, but doesn’t have a robust transit system. It’s a city, but one that has much more green space than urban space. It isn’t a city in the same way those other two cities are. But it lacks the harsh winters or oppressive summers of other cities, and it holds such immense beauty in its unique architecture and history. After living in SF for 4 years now, I do start to wonder what living in other places might be like, but for now, the lack of pollen, mild climate, and slow pace of life suits me.
I’m back in SF now and nursing a cold, as my travel catches up with me and I attempt to wash an absurd amount of laundry. My favorite bits of travel are finding all the things that we can bring back with us. Once I feel better, I wonder how I can make my life here feel a little more like what it felt like in NYC — filled with friends, filled with walking, filled with great food, and even better times.
Drops of the Week
ALBUM - The Estate Sale by Tyler, The Creator - Tyler b-sides album!
POEM - "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith - Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
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Among too much laundry,
Nikhil