✍️ Desk of Amy Suto: A Crisp Fall Day in a Chelsea Brownstone
Musings from my stay in New York City this November.
Happy Sunday! In today’s newsletter, you’ll read about…
✍️ The impact of our environment on our thoughts
☕️ Some learnings from a class I took at USC on The Science of Happiness
😎 Meditations on what quality of life looks like
📖 3-Minute Story: A Crisp Fall Day in a Chelsea Brownstone
This year I’ve witnessed several changing of the seasons in Manhattan, from my spring stay in Midtown earlier this year to my mid-summer trip — I’ve seen all sides of the city.
Fall is a particular classic: you get the winter markets, so many specialty hot cocoa options, and all the leaves changing colors and lining the streets like nature’s crisp confetti.
During my travels to different places at different times of the year, I keep coming back to this truth:
Environment affects us more than we consciously realize.
I’m reminded of this as my partner Kyle and I scoot past paparazzi’s camera flashes as they snap photos of some hockey star at our favorite bagel joint in Chelsea. We avoid getting tangled in the autograph line, just trying to get our breakfast order in as fans in jerseys clamor around us.
NYC is many things: a greatest hits of world cuisine, a shot of adrenaline block-by-block, and perhaps my most beloved metropolis.
During a “Science of Happiness” class at USC, I learned that people who live with higher decibels of noise in their daily lives are markedly less happy than those who live in quiet areas.
So what does that mean for New Yorkers, chronically exposed to screeching metal subway cars and honking horns?
In lieu of having actual happiness data, I can only compare what I experience as a long-term traveler in the world.
After a week in New York, I’ve witnessed more arguments in these seven days — between pedestrians, drivers, airport workers, baristas — than I did the entire month I was in Athens, Greece, or the nearly three weeks I spent in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.
Even Valencia, Spain feels like it resides in a different universe than NYC: the softness and slowness of life in Valencia feels cinematic. Streets close without warning for water balloon fights between neighborhood children, complete with official barricades just for neighborhood jubilee.
At 10pm each night in Valencia, families would gather at impossibly long picnic tables under the glow of orange streetlamps, massive paella pans in front of them. It was as if everyone shared an outdoor living room with one another, and every block felt warm and inviting.
Quality of life is something I think about when I visit each place.
As I wake up in our small but sunny room in a Chelsea Brownstone, I’m grateful for the rare quiet. Unlike Costa Rica, there are no howler monkeys waking us up in the middle of the night to protest upcoming rainstorms.
Even in its loud extremes, the quality of life in New York City is in the eye of the beholder. You have the angry traffic, but in a few blocks you can be standing in the glow of a Christmas Market eating the best raclette of your life, freshly scraped from a wheel of cheese underneath a heater. The creamy melted cheese and acidic pickles on a soft baguette are a high quality of life in inspiring bite after inspiring bite.
Even World Spa, an insane spa experience in Brooklyn with snow rooms and saunas and steam rooms from all over the world, feels like the best of the best. The sheer density of people in New York City has pressure-tested diamonds that sparkle for all who can experience them.
But even in the shine of the diamond comes the blood sacrifice of what it takes to build here, to be here. I don’t know a single person who lives in NYC who actually likes their apartment. You don’t live here for the comfort or the views: you live here because you have to be here, or because this is all you’ve known. There is no in-between.
Well, maybe I’m the in-between. I live here when I want to, without being committed to the city. I stay long enough to enjoy the city — but not long enough to hate it.
As I write this, I’ve had my last New York bagel for the year, soft and salted in all of the perfect ways a bagel should be, and I’m on a plane to plush Patagonia.
My quality of life looks like balance:
Summering on the shores of a Greek Island, “wintering” in sunny Patagonia experiencing its first blooms of spring.
Afternoons spent walking through cobblestone streets of mountain towns in Peru, or down the oldest trails in the world towards ruins of an ancient society.
Evenings walking past all of those long picnic tables of families in Valencia, all sharing a dish passed down through generations.
I sleep in beds that are big and small, soft and firm, and walk down beaches, up mountains, past avenues. I share meals with friends from many different backgrounds, walks of life, and countries of origin.
We are our environments because they’re what created us. But just because a place made our past, doesn’t mean it’s presenting us with the future we want for ourselves.
Pick the place that feels like home for your happiest self.
✨ 2 Quotes to Inspire You
"The great victory, which appears so simple today, was the result of a series of small victories that went unnoticed.” — Paulo Coelho
“The objective of cleaning is not just to clean, but to feel happiness living within that environment.” — Marie Kondo
✍️ 1 Journal Prompt for Reflection
What does your environment foster in you? What behaviors and habits does your immediate community reinforce, and what does it not support? How have different environments affected your mood in the past? Where have you felt happiest?
Feel free to share your reflections in the comments:
💻 New Blog Posts on AmySuto.com
🎙 New From the Desk of Amy Suto Podcast Episodes
#107 Three Mistakes to Avoid When Self-Publishing Your Book on Amazon KDP (5 min)
#106 Three Steps: How to Write a Book Outline for Your Memoir or Nonfiction Book (3 min)
#103 Four Lessons From Eat, Pray, Love: Best Travel Memoir Example (9 min)
I create these podcast episodes from my blog archives using the tool Wondercraft AI, a text-to-speech tool that speaks in YOUR voice. 🎙 Use my code SUTO50 or this link to get 50% off your Wondercraft AI subscription! (paid/affiliate link)
📸 Photo of the Week: Hello From Patagonia!
I talked a little about arriving here in Patagonia in my Thanksgiving post. It’s finally warming up and getting sunnier here — excited to start exploring!
Follow me on X/Twitter or Instagram for more!
⚡️ Upcoming Wednesday Edition: What I Wished I Knew Before I Became a Digital Nomad
This Wednesday, ✍️ From the Desk of Amy Suto paid subscribers will get an exclusive issue about…
✨ What I wish I knew before becoming a digital nomad
🧪 Emotional, physical, and mental challenges of long-term travel
📚 Why I love being a digital nomad, and keep choosing travel over settling down
Sending creativity and good writing vibes your way,
-Amy