The City That Never Rests

By Tim Knapp

As I walked the streets last night from 7:30 to 10pm, it seemed the longer I was out the busier the streets became. How is it that on a Monday evening the activity seemed to pick up the later it got? It’s nothing new, here. It is not unusual to walk past hundreds--no, thousands--of people dining along the streets on mild evenings at tables outside the myriads of cafes and restaurants, past 10pm. Not here, anyway. After all, this is the city that never sleeps.

A fair portion of those you will see out and about after 10pm on a week night in New York City are tourists. Wild-eyed, excited, exuberant tourists who have come here to take in all they can. Sleeping is something they’re not here to do. But most of these people are not tourists. They’re New Yorkers. And they’ll be up again in the morning and off to work by 7 or 8 am. Back to work. Back to the grind. So what gives?

It’s not that they don’t sleep. They sleep, but not much. There’s simply not enough time for it. Not here, anyway. So many have come to make a name for themselves, to break into their field, to get ahead. Others have come because their high-profile, high-demand position required it. And it comes at a price.

Putting in ten to twelve hours of work per day is not the only requirement for getting ahead. There’s much shoulder-rubbing and networking to be done. One must spend a certain amount of time in the right places with the right people, doing the right things. And even though some have families, it is still what must be done. Or is it?

One might argue that as long as you’re young, why not go for it? Or, it is simply the sacrifice required to be here, make the big bucks, get the big break. Is sleep really that important? Well, yes and no. Some who sleep plenty, never seem to rest. And others who don’t get enough sleep, tend to rest well. So what’s up with that?

It could be that something is going on beneath it all. That perhaps underlying our desire for accomplishment, there’s a deep-seated need to be seen, recognized, or heard. Something that shouts for approval, even disrupting our sleep. How will we ever rest from this continual, nonstop quest for notoriety? Perhaps by realizing our rest is found not by sleeping, not in less work, and not in vacations; it is found in a person. One who said, “Come to me, all you who are weary...and I will give you rest.”

Fourteen Months

By Lindsey Knapp

After fourteen months in this city, what amazes me is no longer simply that I’m here; it’s that I belong here. Sometimes it just amazes me to come home. To turn off Broadway, walk up the tree-lined street, cross West End Avenue, in the front doors, through the lobby, up the stairs, and in our red door. It’s our door now! Our building! Our street! I didn’t have neighbors for the first thirteen years of my life; now, there’s the Jewish family down the hall, the French foreign exchange students who once borrowed a casserole dish, the little girls above us who sometimes sound like they’re studying to become clog dancers. I know my way around the Upper West Side now; Bethany and I have scouted out the best pizza places and we know where the ice cream trucks hang out. Taking the subway, the bus, a taxi, or walking somewhere does not require a map. We have our weekly schedules--I have chorus twice a week, Beth has co-op classes Wednesday mornings, Mom hosts a prayer group once a month, Dad has a mens’ breakfast every so often.

Life certainly looks different here. Homeschooling and working from home means that all four of us are in this apartment for a good bit of every day. That’s mostly a good thing. Sometimes this place feels so small, particularly in spring days when it doesn’t feel like spring. On the other hand, the times that we all go somewhere together aren’t as often; oftentimes, we converge at church from four different places. And each of us having our different activities means that we have less mutual friends. Before telling my Mom a story about what happened today with so-and-so, I first have to explain who so-and-so is and how she might know them. And, to all you friends of my parents’ who have invested in me and loved me during my short life: thank you. I never realized until moving to New York how much the influence and interest of adults has encouraged and grown me. I don’t know all my parents’ friends now, and sometimes it bothers me!

Since coming to this place, I feel a bit like I’ve discovered, or more fully realized, the beauty and the grittiness of life. There is so much beauty in people; you discover this when you live on the same square mile as 60,000 others. People encourage me without even saying a thing; the woman walking past wearing an awesome melon pink coat, the girl crossing the street who looks contently happy about something, the children playing in a sprinkler below my windows, the baby who looks like a small dumpling. And the grittiness. Living on the same square mile as 60,000 others also means you have to deal with their humanness. Our kitchen ceiling is much worse for wear because of a running--and running, and running--faucet in the kitchen above us. And people are ugly. Walking past two grown men yelling at each other on the street is not particularly pleasant.

So. Life is good. Life is very busy. Mostly I feel very thankful for where God has put me; for the passions he’s given me. There is much to muse about on a Sunday evening.