The Big Apple!
If cities are machines designed to produce interactions between people, New York is the largest and most efficient one to which I’ve visited. It was, in retrospect, foolish to try and cram a universe into three days: but the three days have been very good, filled with the silly (I saw a rat! I saw a pigeon! I got a New York slice!) and the divine (Morgan’s library, Strand, walking through East Village at dawn) and so many very incredibly good people.
I’m flying back tomorrow at seven in the morning; I get back into Seattle at ten and will head straight to the office. I will try and work on the flight (six hours is not to be squandered!) but even now I know I will be spending so much time thinking about what I saw: the rats, the pigeons, the dogs wearing Canada Goose jackets, the subway cars crossing like lattices, the acres of brownstones, the machine humming blissfully along.
It turns out that it everyone was right, is what I’m saying: that New York is in fact very good, and I am looking forward to coming back.