I have a feeling this is going to be one of those days where even the smallest victory is something to cling to. I managed to get up early enough to make my own lunch today! And my retirement calculator says I can retire 1 week ahead of schedule! Go me!
On days like this, when all I seem to hear is the digital call and response of tinkling office phones and my own typing is pounding in my ears, I remember that I can stop what I'm doing and peer out the window onto Rockefeller Center gardens and Fifth Avenue bustling below, and damn...it's actually a beautiful New York spring day outside.
I've been thinking recently of all the New York 'favorites': my NY places both beloved or newly discovered that remind me how lucky I have been to live in this place. And I think a good remedy to the Mondays is to share them! For me, any one of these activities is a rut-breaker and steels me for the NY hustle. These are my New York Places with a capital "P".
1. The Edgar Degas Rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
I've lived in NYC for 18 years, so how often do I even make it up to the Met anymore? It's shameful. Still, the rooms of Edgar Degas' oils and pastels in galleries 816 and 817 comprise my favorite spot in the museum. The easiest way to get there is to go up the stairs upon entering the Met and hang a left, which will take you straight through the Drawings and Prints and Photo galleries and into the 19th and early 20th Century European section. Though this wing is never particularly tranquil, my seas calm and my mind-silt begins settling to the bottom when I enter the dimmed gallery of drawings. The lights are low to protect the vibrancy of the pastels, many drawn on colored papers that have since faded to tints of grey. Still, the colors glow in the low light. I never get tired of looking at the studies of little ballerinas and the women trying to bath in improbably small basins.
Dancers, Pink and Green by Edgar, Degas. Oil on canvas c. 1890. From the H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. On the Met's super informative website I learned that Degas manipulated the oils to mimic the pastel techniques he liked to use.
So this marks the first in my own personal "best of" New York list. Every time I feel a case of the Monday's coming on, I'll share another New York spot that brings a smile to my face.