quiet blooms

There’s a place I go when I need the world to slow down a little.

NYBG has been that place for me for years—before the brownstone and this beginning, I’d go there after endings to be alone. To walk through the grounds after a job that looked good on paper but left no room to breathe. To float through the rock garden after a breakup that rearranged not everything, but enough things. I would go just to walk, to sit, to be reminded that not everything blooms on schedule—but it still blooms.

It’s still the place I go to - usually when I need perspective. When I want to be surrounded by something alive that asks nothing of me.

During construction, I found myself there more often. When the house felt like a tangle of decisions and sawdust, the garden gave me symmetry. Something soft to rest my eyes on. There’s a spot near the rose garden where the light always catches just right in late afternoon. I’d bring a notebook sometimes. Or sit at the counter of the grill with a glass of wine. Other times I’d just bring myself. Just sit there. Just be.

Some people carry a narrow view of the Bronx. They imagine only grit and noise. But it holds more than that. There’s beauty here you have to slow down to see. Not the kind that shouts for attention—but the kind that stays with you. A neighbor sweeping her stoop before the sun is up. The hum of a block waking up on Saturday. An old oak in the middle of a community park. The garden has always felt like a reflection of that kind of beauty.

It’s not separate from the Bronx—it’s of it. And for me, it’s long been a kind of quiet constant. A place to lay things down. A place to remember how to begin again.

This is a kind of home too.

—L