Washington Square Park

Living in LA was like being on vacation for 14 years.

The sun, the beaches, the palm trees, treating every weekend like it was a “last night in Cancun” situation rather than “I have to work tomorrow”.

Sure, I never sat daydreaming at my windowsill thinking “When will all this great weather END??”

However, I eventually stopped appreciating it.

In Seattle, a sunny day meant you’d better not step one foot back inside unless you have diarrhea. In LA, it meant you should put down that dumb book and go hiking before heading out for a round of day drinking. Basically, any day of the year.

After a week of pretty depressing NYC weather, I set out for a walk this past Sunday morning along the High Line and I actually felt grateful for the blue skies and sun.

I haven’t had this sensation since my first week in LA when I wandered my neighborhood in awe of the giant palm trees. What a difference they were from the blanket of fir or pine trees that would constantly cloud my peripheral.

It felt pretty good to have a smile on my face that wasn’t plastered there out of necessity and for once, appreciate my surroundings. Not just tolerate them.

I seem to notice flowers everywhere in Manhattan. It’s not because they appear in higher frequencies than in LA, not by a long shot. It’s because all you see in your daily walk here is cement and brick and grey and puddles and garbage bags.

So, when a little gathering of pink tulips pops up in a small patch of dirt surrounding a tree, you notice them right away. Or, at least I do. Maybe because I’m too busy staring at the ground, making sure I don’t step into an open sidewalk basement.

Or maybe I’m doing all I can to find the color in this city. And then text my mom a photo of it so she can think good thoughts of New York and not search Google Maps at night, wondering which ditch I’m lying in.

As I walk the High Line park (where flowers and greenery abound) and see the hoards of tourists, a part of me envies them.

Part of me wishes that, after a fun few days in NYC, I could go home too.

MY WEEK IN IPHONE PHOTOS:

You don’t have to look hard to find the color amongst the grey.

Sausage and Pistachio Pesto Pizza – Keste Pizza

Chocolate Pretzel Cheesecake – Billy’s Bakery

For $1, this lemonade is the best deal in town.

It’s a garage sale block party on the same street as Carrie Bradshaw’s house from “Sex and the City”.

Birdman of Washington Square Park

Manhattan from Brooklyn

Smorgasburg is a weekly food festival in Brooklyn featuring anything you would ever want to eat…ever.

Smorgasburg Pretzels