New York is a city that should not exist.

It’s not really a city, but a world; like 15 existing cities folded up 30 times. It is a living, breathing juxtaposition. It is both lawless and rigid; rich and poor; high and low; brand new and old as the soil of this country. In a 15 minute walk, you can pass through five neighborhoods, each one holding thousands of stories of famed artists, outlaws, criminals, and family trees expanding beyond their origin country. You experience different countries, states, industries and languages in a convenient 5-borough layout, complete with its own public transportation that acts as a magnification of the city itself. Throw a dart at a map of the world and find a restaurant that takes you to that country. Homes and apartments are stacked on restaurants or tattoo shops or insurance offices, blending things together in some uneven, jagged way of life that does not belong anywhere else. There is so much of it.

New York is deeply reserved. Like someone you may know, it presents itself as harsh or cold, but time and acceptance reveals it as a place of deep love. It feels very deeply; pain and joy alike. It might even see them as one in the same. It does not command you to be anything. It is not for everyone - which there is reason for. For those that find a home of it at any point in their lives, there’s a piece that’s always stuck there. In the chaos, the amazement, the extraordinary resilience of a city that will only be itself, some piece of you will be there and reawaken whenever you come back. The roaring streets, the smells, the noises, the wind will remind you of your own resilience. Your pride. New York will not care for you; it makes you learn how to care for yourself. You find beauty in trash covered streets of 5th avenue, after a night of drinking, walking outside an old church that you never noticed, and wonder how many people have had their funerals there in the many versions of this city. You have many moments like that, when you get the chance. You see a softness under the concrete shell, which changes the way you see everywhere else.

New York is unexpected and unrelenting. There’s a reason the poets love it here.