I Discovered a New New York Walking Through the Pandemic
This daily dose of exploration and time spent outside saved my mental health
Hope is eternal, or that’s what they say. I’m reflective, I’m optimistic, I’ve changed. The sense of New York City past, while we enter into the new version of New York City gives us the space to contemplate a lot about our previous lives in a city that has been in hibernation for 12 months. Our day to day lives have changed drastically and that is something we have to personally work through. What many people don’t realize outside of the city is that many former residents left the island for good, which ultimately changes the landscape of how we work and socialize in one of the most populated cities in the world. A lot of people are speculating what a new New York would look like and the following is what I have witnessed.
We are entering into a new time, a surreal time, it’s one year since Covid 19 changed the world. How do we look towards the future while our past is still so very omni-present? Where do we go from here? We are emerging from the cold dark winter. For the first time in a year, there is a sense of positivity, excitement, an energy of hope. What comes next?
For almost a year we have been told that we are safer indoors, to not go outside and to stay in our homes/dwellings. The statement that was said over and over again was that we “need to go indoors”. As if the indoors would hide us from the dark, from the fear, from the pandemic itself. The media continued to share, “we are being forced inside”. I resisted the sentiment. We can safely venture outdoors and in fact it has been proven that the outdoors is one of the safest and healthiest places we should be, as long as we wear our masks, stay 6 feet apart, and are more aware of our surroundings. Isn’t it ironic, we are better off outdoors, outside of our 4 walls and sitting on our couches watching the TV. We must get outdoors, that is where we are never alone, just look and listen to the secrets of nature just outside our door.
My career has been in beauty and in recent years understanding its deeper connection to wellness. It’s actually been a very natural and easy progression. Nature is beauty and the ups and downs of the pandemic, dealing with what is lost, has enabled me to see the joy that can only be felt bythe experience of being outside. My job is to encourage people to connect with the outdoors, to champion the health and brain benefits of the outdoors and to advise corporations, brands and the hospitality sector how to amplify the beauty of those moments. My roots are in New York City and Central Park has always been my spiritual sanctuary — it is where my thoughts and soul feel most alive and safe. When COVID came onto my radar, I welcomed the opportunity to curtail my travel and concentrate on Wellness Walks in the Park. We were then being asked to do something that was completely foreign — to stay inside. No events. No office visits. No visits to friends or by family. No restaurants or late-night conversations. Connection is everything to me. Most of us who live in NYC have postage stamp sized apartments and our whole reason forbeing here is to experience work, art, food, and relationships outside our dwellings. The early days of COVID were frightening and I found myself falling prey to the daily onslaught of a pinging phone, a talking head and the disaster porn that seemed to blare from every TV channel.
We are no good glued to the narrative on the television and I had to get outside. In the early days, I would go on walks to chronicle the desolation of the city and implore people to get outside, with their familyunits, safely of course. This was informed by research that showed that nature can provide new connections that might neutralize and provide solace to the incredible loss we were all feeling. It was cold in the early days and that madeour newest accessory, the mask, feel less intrusive.Quickly I realize something, the hum is gone. The noise is gone. The sound of the city is completely gone.No cars. No horns. No buses. No planes overhead. No construction and no people.
On my walks, I encourage people to study their cadence and experience the senses that movement releases in our brain when we are outdoors. It’s a mindful meditative practice that enables one to see and feel the health and transformative powers of nature. That’s precisely what I felt when I realized that the hum of the city was gone. I was enthralled by this. The cold wind could be heard as it wafted down 5thAvenue. I videotaped this so I could share this new reality. It felt like a movie set of a future dystopian New York City where people were absent, and nature abounds. I walked through every neighborhood and experienced little gems I had never seen. It was breathtaking and beautiful in its rawness. Bird song filled the corridors of Park Avenue and cascaded up and down and around the streets.These sounds bounced off the steel and brick buildings and created new and soothing melodies. The city was quiet for the first time in my life. Quiet creates a space for beauty to enter. Some days I’d walk a few miles and others ten or more — the more I walked, the more gratitude I felt in my heart. My breathing became one with my walking and it enabled me to live in the moment and be fully present every day. I never had a plan where I’d walk, I just knew I had to get outside and go. Some days I followed sounds — one day it was a church bell down abarren street. Another was the clanging of the flags at Rockefeller Center billowing in the breeze. The bright lights of Times Square became more beautiful, so much brighter, without the crowds. This newly discovered solitude in a city that never sleeps, but now paused, enabled me to go deeper and step slowly into a deeper understanding of myself and these rediscovered surroundings.
The more I walked, the more I saw, really saw for the first time. This New York City was like I had never experienced before. I could see the buildings, the architecture, the spaces of sheer beauty without the rushing and whizzing and bustling of locals, tourists a like and cars and everything else that gets in the way of the actual seeing. I had discovered a new New York City. These new connections filled the void of all the personal and professional connections I was so sorely missing. I fell in love with it.
Butted up against this new love I was feeling was the overwhelming presence of fear and sadness. The death toll was increasing, and the incidence of the virus was spiking. The absolute silence was often interrupted by ambulances shrieking and helicopters overhead day after day. A morgue and a hospital were set up in Central Park. Friends fled the city and for many of my colleagues in the retail and hospitality sector, jobs were lost possibly never to return. Homelessness and hunger were increasing, and the television once again seemed to be blocking my door. We are not being true to ourselves with this attachment to electronic devices. The sofa or chair all day is the new smoking, I had to force myself to continue to get outside again and again, day after day, month after month.
The city remained empty for months. One day I pass a man carrying a large boom box blaring a news clip that states the city will be releasing a plan to reopen. It was surreal as we were the only two people walking on the street passing one another. Did I walk onto another bizarre movie set? Wall Street feels particularly peculiar — no men or women in perfect suits coming to and from the Exchange. Though it is warming a bit, a breeze hits me from the East River, and I feel its chill throughout my body. Is it the air or what I’m seeing that freezes me? I pass a photographer capturing in his lens what I’m experiencing with my feet. We pass one another and nod quietly, our eyes connecting. No words are exchanged, just an acknowledgement that we are both alive. I still follow the sounds. One day it carries me to a desolate street in front of a beautiful brownstone.On this day a soft sounding buzz caught my attention. It actually stopped me in my tracks. I can’t see what is prompting this buzzing sound, it’s so faint, yet I can hear it on the streets of Manhattan, that in itself moved me. I follow the sound, I cross the desolate street void of pedestrians and cars and look at an old beautiful brownstone covered in wisteria. I am in awe of the site of hundreds of bees enjoying the sweet nectar of the wisteria dripping down the front of the home and equally in awe of the fact that I could hear bees! I have never in my life heard bees buzzing just steps off a city block. This experience awakens a sense of awe that washes over me.
In May, the seasons change as do the colors. Green is in abundance and the trees and plants are coming to life. Then it happened, I woke up one morning and it felt as though the tectonic plates had shifted one again. I could hear it the minute I awoke from my slumber with eyes still yet to open. The hum was back. It’s that underlying constant sound of 24/7 construction that vibrates through the ever evolving city, making way for the new. It was back. With that, the city noises begin to return. I found myself botheredby this new shift, this new noise, the old noise, the old normal.
I felt the poets speaking, reminding me that we must come out of this differently, absorbing what has been lost so we can change for the better.
I answer the poets challenge by saying that I discovered a new energy to the city. Sometimes you must go inward to go outward. Being forced inside enabled me to find the magic of the outdoors even more than I thought possible. I discovered the doves that visited my sill and put out birdseed for them. I named one Barb and the other Susan, and they became connected with people all over the world through my Instagram feed. A regular routine with them was established over breakfast and dinner. I’ve lived in the apartment for over 10 years and I’ve never had birds of any kind visit my window sill. They were the only visitors I had since February. Ever have the feeling of returning to a place after a long absence and experiencing something new about a place you thought you knew everything about? That’s what I was sensing.
Silence. Nature. Awe. Moving outside to better understand what is going on inside of you. People always say they are too inside their bodies — why not go outside and get more into our minds? Every indication was that the fall and surely most of the winter would become even darker and it was. What I have come to realize and understand more deeply is that stepping safely outside for a period of time every day gives us the ability to understand a moment and the solace to see beyond it. While I still ache for parts of what my pre-COVID life was like, I am the better for witnessing parts of my city that I never knew existed. The walks allowed my heart and brain to be in sync, in coherence with my steps, and to find a peace with what may lie ahead. Perhaps the city needed a pause. I have been able to see and feel new things and in that come to terms with the fragility of life, our relationships to each other and the need for connection. Nature helps us find meaning and being outside is a perfect antidote to all the anxiety and fear that is around us. In 1665, Isaac Newton was sent home from the University during the bubonic plague. It was on his family farm that he allegedly observed the falling apple that led to the laws of gravity. If we could look upward and feel and absorb the majesty of the trees, what could we discover about ourselves?
The beauty of rediscovering a city is uncomfortable at first, but then it starts to feel welcomed and the healing and changing becomes inevitable. With my new eyes, I have been able to truly see and feel the inarguable fragility of life of each and every inhabitant on this small island and the impact and connection we all have to one another for our survival. We are all seeking meaning in it, that in its rawness is how we feel connection. We continue to seek understanding and step out of fear and anger and frustration. The beauty of a reborn city is its inhabitants that grasp that it’s uncomfortable right now, it’s not the same but what is yet to come can be even better than it was before. Imagine a city that is accepting, kind and more in touch with the beauty of its natural surroundings? It is possible to live our lives in a simpler, more profound way. Filling our lives with kindness, compassion and understanding of all living creatures in this incredible island and sharing connections and experiences anew.This is the place we love to call home, this island of continuous hope, known as New York City.
