Photos of the Day: Urban Meditation

Sometimes the City can be an overwhelming sensory blur. In all the rush, you can get stressed out and miss things.

If you slow down, take some time off, and explore on off hours, you can see new things, in places you weren't expecting them.

Early Morning Tai Chi
Lincoln Center Reflecting Pool
May Day 2011

Afternoon Meditation
New York Botanical Garden, Desert Exhibitions
Late April 2011

Me? I'd rather have chocolate, Diet Coke, and a good book.

OMMMMMM! GIVEMEMOOOORREE CHOCOLATE OMMMMMMM!

Random Rooftop View from the East Side

A few weeks ago I had a girls' overnight in New York with a college friend. Waking up in an apartment on the 14th floor of a high rise is slightly, oh-so-slightly, quieter than the noises I'm used to experiencing in the studio in my bit of New York.

The views from her balcony were amazing. (Sadly, Auntie Nettie's Attic does not have a balcony, or access to the rooftop.) It also provides a glimpse into some of the secret lives of New Yorkers, and a different perspective on the City.

Views to the East

Looking down from the balcony, right across

This church is so close to its neighbors. Too close. Almost inseparable, you might say.craning to the left, andanother one down below -- to the left. I love the art on their brick wall.But by far, my favorite was the apartment and deck on the building farther across the way from the church. If you can't get to Sagg Harbor, you do your best to improvise.

One day, Auntie Nettie's Attic is going to have a balcony and/or deck, and the studio can move back into a real attic, where it truly belongs.

File this under: real estate envy/location, location, location jealousy.

Well we're movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.

With apologies to the Jeffersons.

Darn it, now I want some pie!

On Top of the World, Looking Down

You can take the girl out of the '70s, but you can't take the '70s out of the girl.

With apologies to Linda and Richard Carpenter. Go here for a better version of this classic hit and to get the tune stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Such a feelin's comin' over me

There is wonder in most everything I see

Not a cloud in the sky

Got the sun in my eyes

And I won't be surprised if it's a dream

...

I'm on the top of the world lookin' down on creation

And the only explanation I can find

For New York City's ever crowding problems

is creative use of spatial relations

(Can you see the free parking spot, or the hammock swinging in the breeze?)



Something in the wind has learned my name

And it's tellin' me that things are not the same

In the leaves on the trees and the touch of the breeze

There's a pleasin' sense of happiness for me

(I think it's just the endorphin rush from all the exercise. This is just the view from the gym and then up close!)


I'm on the top of the world lookin' down on creation

And the only explanation I can find

Is the love that I've found ever since you've been around

Your love's put me at the top of the world

(That would be the love of NEW YORK! Just to be clear.)

Train of Thought

E. B. White's 1948 essay, “Here is New York,” was excerpted and introduced last month as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new Train of Thought literary campaign.

Makes for some interesting contemplation during the subway commute.

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something ….Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

With thanks to The New York Times for the photo and the quote. An interesting discussion about the card and the "New Yorkers" is going on over on the City Room blog.

Dispelling the Myth

Working and living in NYC is nothing like the media portrays it. All of the Candace Bushnell-spawned television programs and Meg Ryan movies to the contrary, it just isn’t like that at all.

What brings this up? Recently I got a comment on the blog from a non-NYer offering a major appliance for the opportunity to live in NYC. I think this an instance of “the grass is greener,” so let me do my part to dispel the myth.

To go on the record, I don’t actually live in the five boroughs. I’m a commuter from a suburb just over the Bronx border. Thanks to a train, shuttle, and subway, I manage to get work everyday. On a good day with an express train door-to-door it’s just about an hour of colorful interactions with my fellow “happy” commuters. On a not so good day, the commute is much longer and emotionally taxing. The worst one-way commute to this job so far has been two hours – and that was because of rain* … and I think I stood up the entire time. In general though, commuting is crowded, stressful, and an often sweaty and grimy affair. Glamorous? I think not.

Fancy Corner offices that you get to yourself? HA! I work in a Big Grey Box that’s in the midst of a five year construction/expansion project. The dulcet drone of the massive drilling project directly below my feet has a massage-like, yet deadening quality to it. While there’s a window in my office, I don’t look out it. I have a Dilbert Cube wall that separates my desk from the rest of the office that I share with two other people. (I’m lucky; one office has 5-7 people in it on any given day). My view, such as it is, five grey filing cabinets and reams and reams of paper. To combat the institutional grey, lack of opening windows, and the institutional air that’s vented in directly over my head, I’ve brought in splashes of color through my decorating, my oh-so-delightful personality, and some plants for CO2. Feng shui? I laugh in your general direction.




For every NYC worker and dweller, there are millions of these examples, some funny, some sad, some poignant, and some hysterical. For the most part though, we envy you as much as you envy us—for your open green space, room to park, lack of tourists, your real grocery stores with actual room to take a cart up and down the aisle, reasonable real estate rates, low crime rates, etc.

Once and a while though, we’ll experience a totally random moment that could only happen in a big city that makes us go: hey, this isn’t so bad. Like last Thursday when I stood on the subway platform in my usual location, grooving to my shuffle (TM). All of a sudden this guy walked up to me. Now, you have to understand, people don’t often walk up to me, though I’m starting to look “native” enough that people ask me for directions more and more (or is the L on my forehead that flashes “librarian”?). I wasn’t too concerned. It’s a safe platform, it was rush-hour, and he didn’t give off a “vibe.” Lots of people were around, and we’re all paranoid enough now that if “we see something, we say something.”I didn’t really have time to react when he reached out and handed me … 1 quarter. Yep. Just one quarter. 25 cents. That’s it. That was the transaction. I was so completely befuddled that I let the guy walk away before I could ask "why?". The business man from ABC standing next to me got one too. Bemused, we both looked at each other, and then turned and watched the guy as he worked his way all the way down the crowded platform, handing out one quarter to each person from his Ziploc bag full of about $20.00 worth of quarters.

Was it performance art? Am I supposed to pay it forward? Or it is just one of those weird New York Stories that offsets the grind of the commute and that brightens the finish on working in the Big Grey Box? Where is the grass greener?

You decide.


* I’ve managed to avoid the commutes that were affected by 9/11, the East Coast power outages, massive flooding, and transit strikes. Keep your fingers crossed.