The noise and the hustle has the power to make you feel alive and part of something special, if only you let it. Why while away the hours in front a the television and risk missing some beautiful and unplanned piece of real life kitchen sink drama? Who needs Eastenders when you can walk through Shoreditch and find all the drama you could want, or indeed need, watching WWIII unfold in a lesbian cafe come thai restaurant? (Let's just say there will be no "I am your mother" moments happening on this occasion...)
In my urban meccas you may not find the beautiful landscapes that provided inspiration for the likes of Yeats and Wordsworth (although come to Bryant Park, NYC as the sky turns to dusk on an evening in fall and you may think otherwise...) but around every corner, through every doorway, and behind every curtain lies a beautiful story yearning to be told, a devastating secret waiting to be discovered and a vibrant character longing to be introduced.
"I like sheltering from torrential downpours in New York on Broadway, watching two types of peeps running for cover from the rain. The grumblers hidden away & the splashers, they giggle & don't mind the puddles. And I like running out of doorways and doing twirly twirls with the gigglers. So did I? Do twirly twirls on Broadway in Monsoon weather? Indeed I did & got soaked to the bone... Happiness is the freedom you feel doing twirly twirls in the rain." Gisele Scanlon
For me the big city can be "a fiction of sorts, a construct, a story, into which you can walk at any moment and at any angle, and end up blindsided, turned upside down, changed." Colum McCann
Rose, get off your 'Queen of Procrastination' derriere and move to London, New York, Paris, any big city. Now!
N.B. Visit Anthropologie by the Rockefeller and you will never fail to be inspired. The beautiful, fabrics, smells, crockery and trinkets may lead to you losing a few hours but these will NOT be wasted. You will leave feeling much calmer and fulfilled, and probably with a little weight lifted off your...*ahem*...purse.
Location:NYC
