McNally Jackson Books was the Highlight of my Trip to NYC

Last November, some friends and I visited New York City for a full week. We explored Times Square and Central Park, consumed far too many $1 pizza slices and regretted buying overpriced waffles at a French cafe. As a Broadway fanatic, I expected the highlights of my trip to be the shows we saw, which included mega-hits like Hadestown, Waitress, and (my personal favorite) the Broadway adaptation of Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. But while I remember all these planned activities fondly, my favorite aspect of the trip turned out to be the three hours I spent in McNally Jackson Books, doing nothing at all.

This is not to say that I expected to dislike the bookstore; I'm a raging book nerd; I expected to love it. But especially on vacation, spontaneity stresses me out. During unplanned activities all I can think about is how much more I could have accomplished had I better managed my time. On the fourth afternoon of our trip, however, when one of my friends spontaneously decided to catch a Little Shop of Horrors matinee, my other friend and I were stranded in Chinatown with no choice but to kill time.

We wove through the streets, past stalls displaying fish on beds of ice and dim sum restaurants with lines of tourists out the doors. Doorbells jangled and bursts of heat flooded the streets as customers entered and exited souvenir and candy shops. Snippets of a dozen languages mixed with the scent of pasta sauce as Chinatown melted into Little Italy, and as Italian arias blared from the propped-open doors of red and white-painted restaurants, my friend and I nabbed cannolis. We ventured into Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood, where amidst upscale cafes and designer boutiques we found the windowed walls of McNally Jackson Books.

While I now know that McNally Jackson is one of NYC's most beloved independent bookstore chains, best known for its in-house pastries and cozy atmosphere, that day I just shrugged to my friend and said, "You know I'm always down for a new bookstore."

As the heated air and buttery light enveloped us, I figured we'd stay for half an hour, maybe buy a book while we warmed up, but my friend (who enjoys women-focused nonfiction best) immediately pounced upon a display table labeled "Women Empowerment." She snatched four books and claimed a leather reading stool at the back of the store, and, concluding we'd be here for awhile, I told her to save me a seat and began to explore.

Literary fiction, memoirs, and nonfiction books filled wall-to-wall oaken bookshelves backlit with warm yellow light. The matte fabric of other customers' puffer coats shlicked across glossy display tables laden with signed editions, bookseller recommendations, and themed new releases. The incomprehensible babble of a hundred conversations dopplered through my ears as I thumped my fingers across the rainbow book spines. Here I was, in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, yet this bookstore was an island unto itself; beyond the glass door taxis honked, subways rattled, and skyscrapers soared, but in that moment nothing existed for me but the books.

The sci-fi and fantasy section was located in the bookstore's basement, beyond a display of "floating bookshelves" designed to present the optical illusion of two dozen new releases hovering just before the wall. Beyond a Middle Grade section outfitted with plush green carpet and myriad dragons and hot air balloons dangling from the ceiling, I rifled through the Neil Gaiman novels for the most pristine copy of his short story collection Fragile Things.

Behind me, a gaggle of booksellers was splayed on the floor beside a roll-top desk that doubled as a display table. This was November, remember, so they were wrapping "surprise Christmas gifts for book lovers." They chatted and laughed as they used Sharpies to write brief synopses of the novels on the outside of the gift paper. One of them caught sight of my copy of Fragile Things and mentioned that they had some books for Neil Gaiman fans on the "floating bookshelves" display.

So back up the staircase I went, where I plucked up a hardback called Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente. It was a short book, more of a novella really, with an extreme closeup of a woman's face surrounded by foliage on the cover. I had never heard of it, but sure enough the reviews recommended it for Neil Gaiman fans, so I decided to do what I thought I hated and...give in to spontaneity. Book in-hand, I sat on the leather stool beside my friend and read.

"The Present is the point at which time touches eternity," C. S. Lewis wrote in his novel The Screwtape Letters, and after that evening I have to agree, losing myself while reading in McNally Jackson is the closest I have ever felt to the perfection that heaven must be.

I won't spoil it, but Comfort Me With Apples is an Adam and Eve retelling that takes place in a gated community. So captivated was I by the lush writing replete with jewel-toned descriptions that I didn't notice the sun sink below the skyscrapers. The artificial light took on an almost fire-like glow, cuddling closer to my friend and me as darkness sidled up to McNally Jackson's windows. When I finally looked up, having finished the book, I found the bookstore nearly empty. I checked my phone and gasped.

"We've been here for over three hours," I told my friend.

She yawned and blinked. Her eyes popped as she realized that our other friend would be waiting for us outside the theater of their play.

We paid for our books, and as we reentered the bustle of Manhattan's chilly streets my friend turned to me.

"You know," she said, "don't get me wrong, I've loved all the other stuff we've done, and I know that that was just a bookstore and we technically could have read for three hours anywhere, but I think that that was my favorite thing we've done. There was just something about it."

And there was.

To anyone who is not so textbook Type-A, the evening I've described will likely sound superlatively mundane, but as someone whose brain is always planning ahead, I spend most of my leisure time feeling guilty for not getting started on the next thing. For those three hours in McNally Jackson, though, I was completely present and content.

"Some infinites are bigger than other infinites," John Green wrote in his bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars, and for the rest of my life I will treasure the little infinite my friend and I spent in McNally Jackson Books. While my memory of that irreplicable evening will only fade as it is folded deeper into my memory (even writing this blog post will alter it, superimposing my actual recollection overtop of the words I have used to express it), I can hold tight to the knowledge that if I was completely present and content then, I will be again. Not all the time, maybe not even most of the time, but if I remain open to the possibility of spontaneity, every once in awhile I will experience the true meaning of vacation, and even a moment of the peace I felt in McNally Jackson is worth the wait.