That City Called New York

            Sometimes I wake up and forget I live in the best city in the world.  Or at least that’s how I see it.  The textures, the people, the surroundings – they all add up to create an environment that breeds creativity, fuels ingenuity, and sparks change.

            There are so many types of New Yorkers.  EB White, in his brilliant and timeless 7500 word essay “Here is New York” said it best:

There are roughly 3 New York’s. 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 the locust each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the 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.

That passion is unrelenting from those of us who still wake with an unknown, who still yearn for more, who still wonder aloud, and who still seek to do better. 

            We complain about money and development, about change, and about the train that never comes.  But we live here.  And aside from the fare increases and the litter, we love it.

            The bars that become regular and the diners where the coffee is endless are there simply because they belong.  The meetings that never end because of people with new ideas and the passion that brought them here still burns.  It's not something that should ever be slowed or stopped.  

            Tolerance is a word that’s abused.  Acceptance is better, because it is inclusive.  New York strives to be inclusive. 

I really can’t imagine being anywhere else.