I thought New Yorkers had lost the will to live after the election. There was little eye contact. Suspicion permeated the air.

"What now? What next?" we all seemed to be not-saying.

The first thing that helped me, because it brought sadness to the surface, was the soulful music playing at O Café in the morning. The second was the look of despair and the rueful shrug I exchanged through the window of the café with a high school principal I know. The third was an hour of reflection at work with colleagues, resulting in the fourth helpful thing, a statement on our weekly blog, Urban Matters, titled: We Don't Know What's Coming; We Do Know Who We Are.

And what helped today was reading in The New York Times that the city approved a rezoning plan on the Upper West Side aiming to break up economic and race segregation at three public schools.

At InsideSchools, we've been steeped in integration for more than a year; reading up on it, visiting schools, and interviewing principals, parents and teachers. We hope this action will have a beneficial effect on children for generations to come.

So in this order:

Music
Connection
Reflection
Action