A Quack in Central Park South

Happiness is a lightness rarely felt, which makes it all the more powerful. It is also such a precarious state that even the slightest motion can disrupt it. From both mythology and practice, I've familiarized myself with the correlation between time and happiness. "This too shall pass" could be the subtext of so many conversations I've had with friends, family, and myself recently in all things personal, professional, and political. 

I began a new job in October and started to recognize some lightness in my self and my new daily routine. Part of this new routine is to figuring out how to get to Midtown East from the West Village. This is a "problem" of a very specific subset of the general population, one I'm happy to report has not caused me more tsuris than actively avoiding Trump Tower (three blocks south) at all times. But as it gets colder, the unceasing midtown crowds and the ominous flashing lights of the NYPD out front of Citadel Drumpf serve as a constant reminder that while the time passes, the coming days will be neither wholly pleasant nor easy. 

However I am finding and holding on to small moments of lightness. In midtown, it's walking around the pathway at the pond at Central Park South. This daily interaction with a quiet corner of New York has made it a place of great solace for me. I am struck by how beautiful it is to watch the leaves turn, with each passing day a marker of some new natural beauty. The ducks quack and tread water without much of a care while people ignore them to take selfies. When was the last time you actually heard a duck quack? It is highly amusing. As I watch the leaves descend, and the increasingly naked branches clash against a pale grey sky, I feel mournful for how careless we are towards nature, and yet how resilient it is, regenerating itself each year. What is now orange and red will become brown and white, then pink and green. The ducks will return, and the park will still smell like horseshit, and we're one day closer to some form of lightness.

But again, it's a very small subset of us who get to say "this too shall pass" and "there's always tomorrow." Wary of sounding like some wacko transcendentalist, I feel like literally grounding yourself in the physical, real world bears some unpleasant and uncomfortable confrontation with everything outside of you. In New York, that is inescapable. Even in the relative stillness of the park, the changing world manifests itself before your eyes. I am reminded each day that the lightness doesn't register without the heaviness.

I'm not expecting to feel light for a long time, and I suspect neither are you. I'm trying to appreciate the heaviness from a different perspective because I think it’s going to feel this way for a while. But for now, I look forward each day to finding brief moments of lightness in the park, and I appreciate the temporary suspension of chaos. I appreciate the ducks, the foliage, carelessly scrolling through Instagram for

Joe Biden memes as I wander, and flipping the bird at Trump Tower. One day at a time.

Galia Abramson appreciates the popular vote, freedom of speech, and Joe Biden. She is thankful for President Obama and Samantha Bee.