Here is New York

With so many questions running through my head this week, triggered by yet another impending departure of a dear friend from NYC, I couldn't have read a more appropriate essay than this 7,500 classic by E.B. White. Recommended to me by the always illuminating Signe, I'm a little surprised that it's never crossed my radar before.

Written in the summer of 1948, it contains some sharp insights consistent to this day. Fifty-five years later or no, the hassles and glorious rewards of New York never seem to change:

"Every facility is inadequate--the hospitals and schools and playgrounds are overcrowded, the express highways are feverish, the unimproved highways and bridges are bottlenecks; there is not enough air and not enough light, and there is usually too much heat or too little. But the city makes up for its hazards and deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin--the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled."

Really nice stuff. And especially perfect for the recent days of reflection ("Now WHY do I live here again and WHY is this what I'm calling home when everything is a CONSTANT STRUGGLE???") that have popped up. Thanks for the reminder, Andy.