I love NY the most at its moments of surreal stillness.

The sultry heat and humidity of mid-summer driving everyone indoors or to the roof tops.

The freezing cold and quietude of Christmas and New Year’s Day. The slowdown of everything in the last week of the year except for wine shops and bars, local restaurants and bodegas.

Sleepless yesterday on Christmas morning, I headed out just before first light, really brisk, walking across the empty Brooklyn Bridge, stopping mid-span remembering some words of Hart Crane. Then wandering around empty streets in Dumbo and Williamsburg for hours, ending with a ferry ride home.

Completely lost in thought.

Exhausted by the political uncertainly of the year. Excited by the pieces of my life that under control, felt just right and empowering.

Wondering, a walking meditation, of how life simply stumbles forward at times with such grace, at other times with such grating friction at all sides.

Remembering viscerally early mornings in my youth at the end of a night out, gathering at the Lucky Strike in Soho at 3am, eating breakfast with downtown friends. Noisy and exhausted, hungry and physical.

Now, waking before dawn, non-directional and cerebral, taking in the city in the unnatural quietness of a truly freezing Christmas morning. Looking forward to an unplanned day of whatever it brings—movies, friends, and some natural Pet Nats I had put aside.

Bookended by the weird reality that after almost ten miles of wandering, ended up in South Williamsburg, where the Chasidic community was just waking up and bustling. Yeshiva buses crowding the streets, picking up kids to go to school. Hebrew signs everywhere.

A disconnected parallel reality, through a keyhole into a world where Christmas, the quietude of my experience that morning, was completely absent.

I relish this time of the year.

The actual holidays mean little, but love the after impact of them. Especially when I choose to stay in the city and dig in to the momentary stoppage of time and purposeful action.

When things are mellow at my local spots. When people in the shops are so exhausted from it all, yet mellow and unshaven. More manifest of the city as a series of small towns, more reminiscent of the fragments of neighborhood life that pull it all together as a living diorama.

Having flashbacks to my father decades ago, musing over his retirement dream. Getting a small, ground floor flat in the West Village, adopting an old rescue dog, tutoring kids in Physics. Being that old neighborhood iconoclast that was always walking around aimlessly with his pooch, sitting on stoops, smoking his pipe, and ready for a chat.

I really like that so few are working, and many in my world quietly taking stock and planning for the new year.

I’m easing into decisions, getting rid of accounts that don’t satisfy or I can’t add value to. Doubling down on projects that truly matter to me. People I need to reconnect with face to face wherever they are.

Re-upping activities that drive more mental and physical health.

Buying nonrefundable tickets to places I want to visit.

A week in Tbilisi by myself working, exploring, and drinking Georgian natural wine. Regathering with a special  group of wine bloggers in Lisbon, then wandering though the Douro together as soon as the weather gets warm.

Embracing the crazy diversity of the life I’ve lived. From the Dulcimer making, poetry-writing, off-the-grid, long-haired hippy, to me on a stage next month talking about the intersection of the blockchain and conservation for the social good.

Isolating what I can do that draws on the best of me, to make some small difference in the face of my place in life and the status of the world.

To everyone in my community of friends and colleagues, I wish you the quietude and wonder of this unique moment in time.

Whether at the top of an early morning mountain ski run with fresh powder for first tracks, that deep blue cold of being so alone and freakishly quiet in the snow drenched trees.

Or that breezy Caribbean warmth, sitting a dive boat ready to break the surface into the deep blue for a holiday dive into someplace you don’t belong.

Or whatever is your wish this year.

Meditation has taught me that it’s what I bring to the moment that matters. That is truly so for me.

I beg your patient indulgence for this plunge into the metaphors of my memory this morning. Feels quite wonderful to write this down, samthecat purring on my lap, the excitement of pushing Publish for the post still palpable some ten years into this blogging thing.

I’ll post my annual take on the trends I’m riding and what I’m taking into 2020 on New Year’s Day.

Till then and to all, Happy Holidays!