Ah, there is so much to say about visiting Manhattan. So much that when I first sat down to write today I didn’t know how to begin!

But I did/ do know this. Such richness, such crazy, jarring richness, is made possible by something we don’t have in the suburbs: urban density.

Here into less than 22.6 square miles flow three to four million people every day. Here are museums, concert halls, restaurants, libraries, universities, even cherry trees (take that, D.C.!). Here are all sorts of people rubbing shoulders (and sometimes bumping into) all sorts of other people.

I sample the city as if it were an exotic yet comforting stew, spoonful by delicious spoonful.

(It’s easier to snap cherry trees than urban density. All that jostling, you know)