Our calendar was more than full during the four and a half days we stayed in New York. I have been to New York several times and never seem to grow tired of visiting. Besides its many attractions, the energy of the city itself is amped up. New York vibrates with aliveness.

The place mystifies me, too. When I fly into LaGuardia, when I look at the island of Manhattan from the air, I wonder how the whole damn island does not simply turn over on its side and sink into the Atlantic. It seems to be too top-heavy to stand up so straight. And, considering the density of people and buildings, it also floors me how, between narrow corridors in museums or tucked away in leafy glades in Central Park, you can still find places where you feel like the only person in the universe.

Our first night started in Queens, in Forest Hills, where we introduced ourselves to the doorman at my cousin’s building then lugged our suitcases to the bank of elevators and on to the twelfth floor. He graciously gave us use of his apartment while he and his girlfriend were in Costa Rica.

After getting settled, we walked over to the nearest subway stop, just over a mile away, and headed to the West Village. We tripped upon an outdoor café that served hand-shaped pizzas made with locally sourced ingredients then hung out at the Blue Note.  Along with a group of Japanese businessmen who also sat at our table, we enjoyed some virtuoso R&B musicians mere feet from the stage.

After a long subway ride back to Queens and what seemed to be a longer walk from the subway back to my cousin’s building, we re-traced our steps to his corner unit, brushed our teeth and stretched out in bed.

It was impossible not to blink our eyes a few times. Although we were exhausted from our nightlife adventure, it felt like the Long Island Expressway and Grand Central Parkway were actually running through the bedroom of the apartment. It was almost three in the morning, but the cars and trucks speeding away nearby did not seem to care that they were making so much noise at such an inconvenient time. We were definitely in the city that never sleeps, hoping ardently that we would somehow discover a way to do just that.

And we did. We slept soundly. We dreamed vividly. Our dreams were populated by the faces we saw on the subway and decorated with corner fruit stands and the pizza by the slice signs we passed while rushing off to planned destinations.

We spent the entire next day in Brooklyn. We cruised through the old Hassidic section of Williamsburg by car, Brooklyn Heights and Prospect Park by foot. We indulged ourselves with happy hour cocktails at Watty and Meg’s on Court Street, chatted up our waiter at The Station on 7^th (he was from Italy) and peered through the windows of dozens of young hipster bars near Metropolitan and Bedford before heading home.

Again, when we got back to home base and stretched out in bed, we could not ignore the loud chorus of nighttime street noises.  Again, we wondered whether the sandman would ever come for us.

Each of the following nights, after equally full days, including one night we spent in New Jersey visiting friends, we lay in bed and heard the non-stop whirring of traffic nearby. Each night, after slipping between the sheets, these sounds seemed especially loud and insistent. Each night we worried about whether we would be able to fall asleep. This always seemed to be our last thought … before we fell asleep.

What an amazing thing; the way the body’s craving for rest transcends the noise and busyness of the city, how being thoroughly mentally and physically tired transcends unfamiliarity and the anxiety of our own thoughts. We were so physically worn out from walking and so satiated in our desire to experience new things that we couldn’t fight the lure of sleep despite our belief that it would be impossible to come by in a strange bed with so much noise and commotion around us.

That the body is so wise to know how to find sleep in the city that never sleeps s no small thing.