Take a day off and be a tourist in your own hometown this month. Yeah, I said it. Go all Beuller on it. Call it a staycation if you must, but get out there and explore that which you already think you know. Because you know what you don’t know? You don’t know what you don’t even know you don’t know, so just… stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Ha!
It’s good to know more about where you are, and to enjoy it, as well. Know Thyself, the Greeks said, and where you live largely determines who you are, so get on it. Know your town, know yourself. Big cities like New York and Chicago and LA would take 10 lifetimes to thoroughly ingest, and every small town and its environs hold treasures to be unearthed with a little exploration. And what better time to do it than the holidays? The weather is generally pretty agreeable, winter having not yet crushed us with its glacially heavy hand, and many cities are done up in their Christmas finery, looking great, with a festive bubble in there air. So it’s a blast.
We take a day off or two every year here in our hometown of New York. We schedule a couple days off work and enjoy what we call “Manhattan Days,” solely devoted to exploring that mad, heaving island just a stone’s throw from our quaint hamlet across the East River, Brooklyn, and marvel at gems we’ve never seen before, giddy (sort of) with that buzz usually reserved for tourists.
Traveling, even in — maybe especially in— your own hometown, is good for you. Mark Twain (or maybe it was Samuel Clemens) said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” This is true on both the macro and micro level, and this is yet another benefit you’ll get when you take a day off and enjoy your own town with the eyes of a tourist. You’ll get out of your constricting little bubble and see what else is going on out there. Get to a neighborhood you haven’t seen before! (People are the same there, but… different.) Check out a museum, even one you went to 25 times when you were a kid! (You’ll discover something new, or see something again through older, wiser eyes.) Grab lunch at a recently-opened restaurant! (You’ll support a fledgling place, have a novel meal, and shop local!)
We often “tour” right here, in our own backyard, making new discoveries, vacating our bubble, enjoying virtually endless local novelties, but our favorite time to take a day off and explore New York is in the run-up to the new year. This city dazzles in December, tourist crush and all, but hey — we’ll be part of that crush, and love it.
This year’s tentative attractions and activities include (but are definitely not limited to)
- The Museum of the City of New York
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Who knows where for lunch (not knowing is half the fun)
- One of those outdoor holiday gift markets that are liberally sprinkled throughout New York in December
- Some damn place or another for cocktail hour (again, not-knowing is fun)
- Maybe Arturo’s for pizza and jazz, mmmaybe not. (flexibility and non-attachment are key to happiness)
- Good-time New Orleans jazz at Arthur’s in the West Village
And that, my friends, is a wonderful day. And wonderful days add up to a wonderful life. Ding! (Congrats, Clarence!)
