A Cheap Escape from New York

Every so often, when I’ve had enough of New York—when the noise stops being noise—I take the Megabus. Twenty dollars. Forty if you book late. Round trip. Dark morning. Lukewarm coffee. A paperback you won't read.

Philadelphia, Boston, Washington. Doesn't matter. Just not here. By the time the city wakes, you're gone. You step off into air that smells different. You notice things. Brickwork. Church bells. People walk slower. The sidewalks feel wider. You've got a day to fill.

You walk. You find a museum. The quiet inside surprises you. A painting of rowers on a river stops you cold. The light on the water looks like something you saw from the bus.

You find a used bookstore. The shelves are dense. The staff have opinions. You buy something you didn't plan to. That's the point.

You find a corner diner with good soup and a waitress who calls you honey. She doesn't mean anything by it. The check comes low. You stare at it a moment longer than necessary. You start to wonder what you've been paying for back home.

After lunch, you keep walking. Past rowhouses with painted stoops. Past a market where two old men argue in a language you don't know. It sounds like music anyway. You sit on a bench in a square. Dog walkers. Pigeons. Someone reads a real book. Nobody networks.

It isn't glamorous. You're not flying to Paris. But for one day you belong to no one. No plans. No meetings. No names. Just you and another city breathing. The church bells carry farther than they should. You listen until they stop.

You come back changed. Not right away. Something in your shoulders has settled. You walked more than you thought. You spent less than you expected. You ate something done the same way for fifty years, and it was better for it.

I've done it more times than I can remember. I keep doing it. Maybe a habit. Maybe a kind of hope.