In New York...

I can't help but hum that song that Audra McDonald sang at the Tonys.
 
Today, with time to kill between appointments, and already too much coffee in my system, I found myself not in Starbucks, but in a public seating area outside a park I've walked past a thousand times.
 
There is something immensely freeing not only about free time (well, not totally free, since I am writing a blog and making notes for meetings, but...), but about just sitting and watching the people go by--the food truck closing up shop for the day, students coming from school, people unlocking bikes, and, believe it or not, two women wearing spa robes and giant hair curlers. Then there are all sorts of people sitting, just like me, but speaking assorted languages and eating all types of outdoor foods.
 
As I have written before, I have a tendency to spend my free time indoors--less temptation to spend money, and always home improvement things that can only get done if I'm home. But today, I was a captive audience. It would have taken far too many needless steps to go home then go out, and I have to say, I was a happy captive. Indoors, even if tasks are different, surroundings are familiar. Outside, the familiar is always mixed with the odd (would you ever see the women with the spa robes and curlers if you didn't go out?). And odd is often what gets our creative juices flowing, far more than vacuuming ever could.
 
Yet, how often would we choose to be captives, to end up slightly out of our comfort zone, not because we were between appointments, but just to shake things up a bit? For me, the answer would be "not very often," and I suspect that would apply to a lot of us. Life's too busy, and the direct path is usually the simplest.
 
Today, in New York, I cleared my head a little for my meetings, and I filled it up with a bit of the odd that I don't usually see. When I am back indoors tomorrow, I hope I'll be better off for having done it.