Another cold and the start of fall

Another cold, albeit much milder than two weeks ago, has largely thwarted my plans for this week. There’s nothing you can do about it, even if it feels extremely unfair when it happens again during this precious time for me in New York.

In the end, there were just days when I didn’t feel quite right. You can’t really describe it. The way you can sneeze countless times and it’s just a sneeze. And then you sneeze that one time and the feeling afterwards is suddenly different and you realize you have a cold, you’re no longer healthy. Everything seems the same and yet everything is different. That’s how I felt on Monday morning, right at the start of the week. I didn’t feel fit enough to do any sport, but I still spent the days in my studio working on various projects.

New shoes

On Wednesday afternoon, I felt good again and felt like I needed to get out of the studio, out of Manhattan Valley and just have a contrasting program. I had been toying with the idea of buying new sneakers for a while and wanted to go to a store in Little Italy. It felt so good to get off the subway and feel this completely different vibe down there. San Gennaro was on and there was a big street party going on in Mulberry Street. I would have liked to stay a little longer, but I didn’t want to overdo it for health reasons and went back to the Upper West Side after buying my shoes. 

Back on track

I didn’t feel fit enough to visit a museum, but on Friday I finally went jogging again and enjoyed my run in Riverside Park.

The hidden gem of Central Park

Fall arrived over the weekend. On Sunday morning at 8.44 am EST, the sun officially crossed the celestial equator and ended what felt like the shortest summer in a long time. We celebrated the last day of summer on Saturday with a long walk in Central Park. We went to my favorite place in the park, the Conservatory Garden, in the far northwest near the Harlem Meer. I love this garden, which is divided into three parts, an English garden, an Italian garden and a French garden. It’s a touch of Europe and I am particularly fond of the English part with its lushness and variety of plants and the Burnett Fountain and its water lilies.

The magic of fall

Although the day was sunny and warm, you could already feel the fall. This change from summer to fall is as subtle as the change from healthy to cold described above. Suddenly everything is different, although nothing has really changed. This week I stumbled across a quote from Kurt Tucholsky that describes exactly this state. To be more precise, it is an excerpt from the poem “The Fifth Season”. Tucholsky was a German writer who lived from 1890 to 1935.

One morning you smell autumn. It is not yet cold; it is not yet windy;
nothing actually has changed at all – and yet everything has.

Kurt Tucholsky

More shopping

The week came to an end with a Sunday off work, which began with another run in Riverside Park and ended with a shopping trip to Macy’s to buy a new suit.

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