In the Center of New York City, Fifth Avenue

There is so much to say about the SCBWI conference I attended over the weekend.  But I'm still digesting, still thinking it all through.  Look for more posts throughout the week.

In the meantime, I'm about a week behind in everything, so I leave you with a visual of last weekend.  Unable to sit still (it's a problem, I'm working on it), I walked 56 blocks down the heart of Fifth Avenue, something I hadn't done in years.  

As a New Yorker, there are areas to avoid unless you must go there out of necessity.  SoHo. Times Square.  Macy's.  Rockefellar Plaza.  To name a few.  Fifth Avenue is another.  Unless you have a relative or friend in town, it can be overwhelming, lined with tourists window shopping, figure skating, waiting park-side for carriage rides, getting to elevators that will take them to the Empire State Building or the Top of the Rock.

I am so often looking to hide away, to sit in tiny restaurants tucked on named streets, to find quiet along the river or under a bridge at the northernmost tip of Central park.  In a city like New York, to survive, you must walk to the edge of things.  That's where you find running paths and quiet playgrounds.  It's where astronomical rents fall, too many blocks away from transportation, a sanctuary from the office towers stretching to the sky.

And so, sometimes, I forget what it means to be at the center.  To get lost in the rush.  To never know darkness under all those bright lights.  

Going there last weekend, being reminded of all that, was, to sound as sentimental as possible, magical.  That's the only word I can think to use.