At some point in the NYC summer, the streets start to hiss back at you.

The heat rises from the pavement like an angry ghost.

The subway turns into a human Crock Pot. The smells mature. Every block is a sensory experiment in heat, noise and eau de hot garbage.

The heat dome has arrived.

Domes are great over sports stadiums not over cities during the summer.

It is time to escape.

Not in a dramatic, “I am moving to a farm way.”

Just… out.

Away.

Somewhere with a pool and actual shade that isn’t cast by a 40-story glass tower reflecting sunlight directly into your retinas.

Outside the five boroughs lies a different rhythm. A slower one. A kinder one. One where your coffee isn’t served with side-eye and your eggs come with a view of something green and alive.

There’s air here…like, air air.

Breathing doesn’t feel like an extreme sport. The soundtrack is crickets instead of car alarms. You wake up to birdsong instead of construction jackhammers and ambulances announcing the dawn.

And yes, there is a pool. A calm, chlorinated rectangle of sanity where no one’s quickly pushing past you to somewhere.

The biggest decision is whether to reapply sunscreen or  screw it and just stay in the water.

Of course, there are things you miss. The spark, the electricity, the possibility that at any moment something wonderful might happen or explode, especially since Agent Orange decided to bomb Iran.

You miss the spontaneous jazz band in the subway and Central Park. The late-night slice or mediocre but readily available Chinese. The feeling that you are in the beating heart of everything.

But that is the trade…chaos for calm. Concrete for trees. Hustle for hammock.

Out here, meals stretch. Lunch is not a transaction, it is an event. Dinner? Forget the rushed reservations and overbooked bistros. Here you eat slowly, with wine and the luxury of time. Drinks are $12 to $14 not $22 to $24. You remember what it’s like to linger.  To not check your phone between bites.

And yes, it’s still hot, but it’s a quiet heat. One that invites you to nap in the shade or lose track in a paperback, to float for hours in the pool, not one that makes you contemplate arriving at your meeting an hour ahead of time to take a sponge bath in the bathroom.

Escaping the city in summer isn’t betrayal. It is preservation. It is a reminder that sometimes the best way to appreciate New York is to leave it… just for a while.

You always come back.

But now?

Now you float.