Category: Urban Life

I had to wake up insanely early for this shot a couple of years ago—in July, the sun rises at 5:30 a.m. over New York.

I couldn’t believe how clear and haze-free the sky was that morning: just like a cold winter day.

I found a quiet bench where someone had left a pair of sunglasses, and popped them on to watch the show.

It wasn’t an innocent time, but the world felt less constricting then, and for a moment at least it was a little easier to catch my breath and find some optimism.

There will be more golden days ahead, but I’m steeling myself for the long, hard slog to reach them.

This is, after all, what I was built for.

It’s always a pleasure when a cardinal comes to visit. This pretty one hung around my window a lot last January and February.

Cardinals don’t migrate, and apparently live in the same territory year-round. It’s funny how I only notice them in winter, though.

I first learned about Paley Park in William H. Whyte‘s The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, an inspiring and formative little book that I stumbled upon years ago and still occasionally thumb through and read.

Paley Park was at the top of my list when I first visited New York, and I’ve returned many times since.

Just 4,200 square feet in size,¹ it’s a perfect little slice of nature in Midtown Manhattan, with a waterfall, trees, and plenty of tables and chairs.

The park is packed every time I visit, whether on a beautiful spring afternoon or a freezing January day.

References

1. Paley Park – Wikipedia ↩︎

These little rebels don’t care about the rules.

They spend their days watching all the dull, desperate people noisily shuffling through the streets below, quietly defiant in their nonchalance.

My kind of birds.

I keep finding new friends outside my door.

This appears to be a porcelain gray, a common gray moth found all over eastern North America. Welcome!

It’s hard not to love the prickly pear cactus, the most durable and low-maintenance native plant that grows just about everywhere in the United States.

Pull off an ear, pop it in some dirt — any old dirt will do — and within weeks, you’ve got a brand new plant. My kind of gardening!