A post about Central Park (of course) and being back in New York.

Central Park Mall
I had some time to wander around Central Park by myself last week during my time in New York and it was pretty dreamy. The weather was kind of cool and stormy, the perfect backdrop for pondering and reminiscing.

But as much as I reminisced and prodded around the depths of my thoughts, I somehow remained pretty pleasantly neutral. I guess I half expected to be hit with some kind of large emotional wave of nostalgia that consumed me with thoughts of my current non-New York life, leaving me in a mush of tears on a park bench. But it didn't. It just felt...normal. Nice.

Maybe not enough time had passed, I reasoned. Or maybe I was too taken with the beauty and greenness of the park, the cool shapes of the trees silhouetted against a steel sky. Or maybe it was because it was still my first few hours in the city, and therefore it hadn't quite sunk in yet that I don't live here anymore. (because, as I discovered later, I was definitely not invulnerable to New York nostalgia and emotion. the first swells hit randomly (or not so randomly, I guess) as I walked north on Columbus past our old UWS apartment, where I had to resist the urge to turn left into our building and climb endless flights of stairs).

But back to Central Park. Even without the emotional waves and deep moments of ponderance, even in it's normalcy, it was still magical and serene. Same as always. And I realized that it will always be that way, with or without me. I can be away for a month, or a year, or ten years, and that park will always be there, bursting with magic and possibility for anyone open to see and feel it. New York is not going anywhere, no matter if I do, and that simple thought makes it all feel very okay.

magical trees of Central Park