WHO WE’LL BE AFTER THIS
How to Fall Back in Love With Your City
What makes you feel connected to the place where you live?
When this is over, I will never pass the musician in the black leather beret, who stands on Poet’s Walk in Central Park playing his saxophone, without tipping him. The sound has always just been there in the background, as natural as the birds chirping. But I never realized how much I associated it with the essence of my adopted hometown, until now.
Central Park is the only backyard I have, so I take my young children there every day. And lately, I look forward to hearing the musician as I approach the gigantic lilac bush that borders Sheep’s Meadow. This lilac is so audacious that its fragrance penetrates our face masks. I stick my nose in it and listen to the sax player jazzing up “My Favorite Things” and then, as the song goes, I don’t feel so bad.
I’ve always had a newcomer’s zeal for this place. I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, and after my mother died there when I was in my twenties, I kept…
