I’m on a mission to find my favorite benches in New York City.

I like a bench because I like to people-watch. A good bench looks out on a busy street. I like to listen to music and watch people come and go.

On a sunny day, sitting on a bench nourishes the soul.

The sunlight touches your skin and warms you from the inside out.

On a cloudy day sitting on a bench is an act of self-love. You need a break from the grind. I can’t go home. There’s not much for me there but work and rest and sleep. I need to be among people, removed in a way. Like an anthropologist, I watch how people live.

Where’s everybody going? People move so quickly. Perhaps a block away, or to another part of town. Maybe they’re going to get lunch. Maybe they’re on their way to change their lives.

Lettem run, son. Put on a song and watch her go.

I love watching people go.

Into the sun each of us runs, searching for some light.

But it’s right here.

I’d rather let my mind run, sitting on a rock on the sidewalk, like a fish that forgot how to swim. Are we meant to keep moving? God, I need a pause before I forget who I was and why I came here.

I came to sit and watch the people go.

It’s who I am. It’s what I do. I move slowly in this city.

Meeting up with destiny for brunch, grabbing a slice of nostalgia in the afternoon, a piece of our past dusted in parmesan and oregano, thrown into a pizza box like it means nothing, but it means everything. To care so deeply about a slice of pie in New York is to relish being young, carefree, with something like desire and taste.

Am I carefree? I got cares. I got worries.

But there’s New York pizza.

A bench on a cloudy day. Wires that lead from this device in my pocket to the sockets of my ears; a melody that somebody created plays and affects me and makes me cry, gives me a reason why.

What are people doing here?

Anything to be here. That’s how I see it.

A chance to live in this place that expands one’s thoughts and spirit and soul, while making you fight for your survival just to call this jungle home. We move here to move fast. To say I gotta be on the Upper West Side in forty minutes, or I got a thing in Brooklyn tonight, but let’s hang this weekend.

While that’s all part of it, I think I’m here for the benches.

To see the people in their stylish dress running for the train or waiting in the lines; to watch friends see each other for the first time from afar before coming close. I wonder if they’re only just friends or if they hope to be more, where they are on their strange journey.

In New York anything is possible.

I’m here to watch the funny little kids in strollers, to hear the music blasting from that person who rides by on their bike.

I’m here to watch the runners run, to sometimes be amongst ‘em, and notice how the setting sun casts shade through the glass into the chic coffee shop, or how her face loses definition as dusk envelops everything, and I wonder what she’s wondering, I listen to the trees and the honks and the dust, I’m fighting for survival, and I need a rest.

But I can’t rest. There’s so much I wanna do. Just chipping away at myself.

How can I do it all.

Just spend my whole life trying.

And when the seasons pass, the leaves fall, I’ll look back and know I’ve lived.

Legacy an echo of love, like footprints in the rain, when I left home and went out once more to try again. Is our purpose just to survive. To make something of survival. To keep going, and be part of earth’s turning.

The solace of a bench can, in fact, be the last line of defense from losing it all completely. Calling it quits. Standing has taken its toll. Running won’t do. I need to drop everything and break. I need to stop moving and be. I need to look inside my heart and ask what it’s always meant to be me.

I can spend a day here, but I only have an afternoon. I could spend an hour here, but I only have five minutes. There’s never enough time to find ourselves. But there’s always another chance, another day, another morning when we may drop the gloves, put down the fight, and stay for a moment on our favorite bench.

At night beneath the moon, the bench is a starship through the galaxy of our soul. By day beneath the sun, the bench is a vessel that sails the seas of human nature. Notice how it changes you. Take heed of what it tells you. You don’t have to run. You can sit in the sun. There’s something we’re chasing that’s no longer fun. It’s a feeling that we long for. I made it. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m worthy.

But you are, lad. All of these things. Here. Alive. Worthy. And I think you’ve made it, somewhere at least. You’ve made it to New York, you’ve found a damn good bench, you’ve got another day, another breath, another chance to live the dream.

Chase, live, give it all away.

Tomorrow we will have our war. But today, let’s watch the people come and go. Why save for tomorrow what you may do today?

Why do today when there’s time tomorrow?

Life is for the living, and living I shall do, not pushing against the walls of infinity, but sitting here breathless in this existential stew. God, this bench is spacious. I have all that I need. A friend has just arrived. How grateful can I be? The moment when your smile cracks, the moment when your heart alights. A warmth shudders through me, and I know it’s all alright.