Dumbo Thoughts
November 19th, 2016
The fact that everyone takes this picture in no way diminishes what a special, singularly American view this is in NYC.
I take refuge in the wide open spaces. I love the mountains, the coasts, the forests, anywhere that wraps me with natural surroundings.
Nature is entropy wrapped in beauty. Equal parts brutality and fragility. A delicate balance that somehow still nourishes the human spirit.
Cities, on the other hand, are human invention stocked with human variables. If nature is a testament to what humans need to feel nourished, cities represent what we do when we need to feel accomplished.
Ordered stone set upon disordered earth. Love them or hate them (I readily admit that large cities give me intense anxiety), nothing is quite so much a monument to human capacity as a skyscraper raising itself against the blue sky.
The day I took this photo, I went to Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood and wrote a letter that changed the course of my life.
I will never forget that table, that cup of coffee, and this beautiful view back toward Manhattan as I walked back to the train.
DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY