I spent one idyllic week in my beloved New York City, one of my favorite cities to visit in the world, on my epic 2019 cross-country road trip. I drove up north from D.C. for the perfect bookend to mark the road trip halfway point. So as with the opposite coastal city trip bookend in Los Angeles, I gave this city a full week of my time.
I lived here in NYC back in 2015-2018, and still visit often in my current multi-city lifestyle. But while it was the right decision to move away at the time, it also broke my heart to leave. Even today, it still freshly breaks every time I come back and have to leave again. That city holds such a special place in my heart, and will always light me up in a way nowhere else can.
So it was amazing to not only be back in this magical city of dreams, but also spend that visit staying with my dearest bestie Adam who still lives here, and my wonderful community of friends here. That said, I still find it enormously fun and fulfilling to explore NYC solo. So while my friends were all busy with their fast-paced New Yorker lives, I went off and did all my favorite NYC things:
Bryant Park & Central Park wanders,
and the New York Public Library at Bryant Park,
explored The Met Cloisters,
and the Union Square farmers market,
lunches with industry friends and nights on the town to classic New York bars and restaurants like Katz’s Delicatessen,
and all sorts of shows (truly NYC’s speciality) including live jazz, movie premieres, friends’ plays, and of course Broadway musicals. I felt tingles watching Kiss Me Kate on Broadway, and it reminded me how magical theatre has always felt to me. And how much I miss it.
That was an interesting realization, considering I’ve been seriously considering leaving the entertainment industry altogether. Definitely rethinking that now… All the world’s a stage. And that stage is in New York City!
This city certainly gives me a “feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets,” as Kerouac described it. I have to say, it’s starting to bring me back around to an empire state of mind.
… But not yet. I’ve still got a whole second half of my road trip to go. THEN I can figure out where I want to live more permanently thereafter. But right now, I’m here “at the end of America…no more land…and nowhere was nowhere to go but back.”
And so back across I go.
