Resilience

Eight days after a bomb shook the Chelsea neighborhood of lower Manhattan, I am in NYC on a business trip, staying in a hotel just a few blocks from where the explosion rocked W 23rd Street. You would never know anything had happened.

I arrived here Sunday afternoon, to be fully rested for a long day of meetings on Monday. I was tired from the train ride, but I didn’t want to lose the day, sunny and clear, with a hint of fall in the air. So I took a long walk to visit to the new Whitney Museum and catch the last day of a powerful retrospective exhibit by photographer Danny Lyon. After a lovely dinner, I walked the High Line back up to 23rd and across 5th Avenue to the east side of Manhattan, passing the site of the explosion without even noticing anything unusual.

New Yorkers are hardy folk. It was incredibly reassuring, after all the horrible headlines, to see how life goes on as normal here. People were out walking their dogs, going on dates, hanging out with friends, taking selfies, eating in restaurants, smoking cigarettes, sitting on benches while immersed in deep conversations. Two men sang their hearts out, busking for the High Line crowd. I passed a man sleeping on the sidewalk. Next to his head, someone had placed a bottle of water and a fresh sandwich wrapped in cellophane.

I must have walked at least four miles, down to the museum and back. Any tension I felt when I set out in the afternoon had completely vanished by the time I returned to my room, a little after eight. There is much more to life than what is filtered through the news. So, come along with me and enjoy the view. . . .

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com.