#450: SPOTLIGHT: Christina Posa

#450: Christina Posa 

Dec 16, 2025

A Backbeat of Community 

Question for Christina: 

Have you ever been to a place you UNEXPECTEDLY felt truly aligned with your spirit?  Where initially perhaps you didn’t sense you would feel at home but surprisingly either quickly or across time you felt a deep sense of home, belonging, and harmony with its landscape, people, and/or energy in some way?  What was the surprise?

Christina's Response: 

“Truly aligned with my spirit” is probably a stretch, but spirit-awakened, maybe, yes. The place that came to mind was The West Side Highway.

For those unfamiliar with New York, the West Side Highway is just that: it’s a stretch of concrete that runs along the west side of NYC, hugging the Hudson River as it winds up and away from skyscrapers and into suburbs. When I moved to Hell’s Kitchen I thought, This will be a good place to run. I did not think, This will be a sanctuary. 

I now know the patterns of the bark on the sycamore trees that start just around 65th street. I know where the geese wade into the water off an old boat ramp. I know where chickadees bop between branches of a smokebush. I know where I can reach up beneath a willow tree to run my fingers through its branches. I know where kids play soccer on Sunday mornings, where parents wait at the base of snowy hills to catch their toddlers on sleds, where couples lay their picnic blankets and where people perch with books on benches seeking solace from the hustle bustle of life.  

It is this familiarity, this detail I’ve come to notice and know, that has very unexpectedly made me feel at home.