Finding Stillness in New York: Museums, Public Pools, and a Murakami Line That Stays With Me

 












New York summers are sweltering, and everyone seems to have their own way of finding relief from the heat.


For me, museums have always felt deeply honest — places where time doesn’t rush or rewind, but simply drifts at its own steady pace.


By the time I arrive at the public pool, I notice something unexpected: a hush, the same quiet that followed me from the museum’s echoing halls.


There’s a line from Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore that has a way of resurfacing in my mind:

"Tamura-kun, in life there are points of no return."


It’s just a clipped sentence, simple and firm.

Yet, each time I recall it, something in me slows — as if the words are anchoring the scattered pieces of my thoughts.


In a city that’s always moving, I find it strangely comforting to hold onto moments like this:
the still air inside a museum, the gentle ripples of a pool, and a single line from a novel that manages to still my restless pulse.























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