Spending a day in the city is like a mini holiday.

• You go out to eat.
• You walk slow.
• You linger, peeking into stores.
• You wait for the light.

You stop to shop even if you don’t need something. Something that you probably could buy near home, but it is different – because it’s New York City.

Even if you’ve just eaten the most delicious pizza, you buy expensive cookies for dessert anyway.

You savor the special occasion that it is. It is a treat you can offer the kids and they love it so much, they believe that they’ll live there someday.

All of this is fabulous…

Unless you work there.  If you work there, every single day is like any other. The uniqueness goes away, you get complacent and you can’t see the wonder that the tourists and infrequent visitors see.

• The sunbathers in the park.
• The dog runs that share space with people, but don’t.
• The variation in the architecture if you take the moment to look up and see it.
• The books you buy even though you have to pay city sales tax and carry them home.

Of course, if the author is doing a reading, you buy the newest book in hardback and the other 2 books in the series so you can have them signed, too.

A day in the city is exposure to every walk of life, with a variety of languages being spoken all around you. It is something you should probably do more often, to support the arts, to expose the kids – and your own self – to a different experience than you normally have. If you do it more often, maybe you don’t buy expensive cookies every time, but when you do, you definitely think they’re the best you’ve ever had…and if you plan ahead, you take pizza home to have later, because it may be a while before you’re back – and even the kids know that this was a special day.

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl