Layover

I thought it would be okay. I didn't even miss it that much; I was so set on continuing onwards. Tomorrow another flight, this is just a stopover, it doesn't even count, don't worry about it. But my heart broke the moment we ran on the tarmac, the moment the cab crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, the moment we stepped out around the corner from my old house and I was home.

There is a darkness that only exists on New York streets after sunset, despite all the lights, despite all the energy, there are black spots into which I sink comfortably and never want to leave. There is a feeling at the back of my spine that says there is no need for questions, because the answers are all right here.

Tomorrow is another flight, tomorrow is another country and I know I must bet on it, I must fight for it. I will be fine. It's just tonight that tears at my gut and screams in my heart, reminding me what I have left, sings to me what I have lost.

It's just tonight that breaks my heart, and I don't know how to make it whole, again.

for the Wear

The valley lay swathed in sheets of pink, peach, twinkling stars. I drove through the city that was my home as the sun set, and all that remained was a sea of street lights and white mountains against the dark night. Twenty years I've known that valley, seen sunrises, sunsets. Before it was even mine, I lay in a house at the mountain bench and stared a jet lagged gaze over it. For years, missing it tore great holes in me, even while living in its cradle.

Now I come and go seamlessly; I barely budge. Years of arriving and leaving have softened the blow, have desensitized my nerves. Parting is still such sweet sorrow, I leave such dear people in the house, it still stings and I imagine it always will. But looking over that valley, too much scar tissue lines my heart, too many tears have already been shed over it, I feel nothing now.

The problem is,
the same can be said for anything.

I feel nothing,
now.

11:11

On a good Sunday morning,
there is no end
to how much coffee
I can drink.

Where We Go

Nothing is brighter that sunshine on snow in Utah. I squint my eyes happily, my body stocking up on Vitamin D like the end was nigh, I forget there was ever darkness. Selective memory may well be the secret to any form of survival. We sat around the bar table with our lives falling apart and laughed. She was just back from Gambia and taking time off, my old roommate and her boyfriend had moved in with her parents while figuring out the next step, I was cleaning out the remains of long suffering bank accounts.

But was this not always where we were going? Did she and I not leap into New York together because what were we going to do in this state all our lives, when staring into the sun lost its appeal? We sat on the Spanish steps in Rome, years ago now, and said that exact thing. It is no surprise we are here today. We will go where we go, he said, where we find jobs or adventures, who knows? and I loved him for living it.

I sat in the hot tub yesterday, watching the snow melt, and I knew it would be okay. I will find the money, I will find a place to sleep. I will remember that life, above all things, is an adventure. Sometimes you don't realize the madness until you've lived it. All things will not be planned and you must scratch the itch, any way you can. It's fine. We're fine.

And home is a place you leave.

F-word(s)

Days settle, normalcy returns. Snowy mountains lie bright white and heartachingly beautiful in the periphery, but the computer screen buzzes with deadlines long ignored. Bank accounts need tending to, lists need writing. It occurs to me there is a life over there to which I soon return. Perhaps I will bank on it. I don't know if I give myself a break, or if I simply give up.

She said my name yesterday, she could do it. She said she missed her favorite word though; she wanted so much to ask her fervently religious speech therapist to help her but couldn't muster up the courage. How do you ask a mormon to teach you to say fuck? But we practiced, and suddenly, it just came out. Fuck. I laughed. "Did I say it?!" I had to ask her to say it again. Fuck! We were all laughing now. Such a small word, such great liberty, and every reason to smile is a good one.

I don't know if I give myself a break, or if I simply give up. But fuck. Life is precious, hardship is relative.

Fuck. We are alive. We are well. That is fine.

Appropriately

"To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart, and to sing it to them
when they have forgotten."

Over Troubled Water

Struck

How much has happened, all these months past. Your babies have grown, their big eyes absorb every corner of the world and then they lay there talking to each other about it during nap time. We sat in the next room laughing at them, trying to catch up amidst loose words and signed letters. Your eyes are the same, your laugh; you are in there.

The tears came later; they surprised my blurry eyes on the freeway and proved relentless through rerouted construction zones. I wasn't sure what I cried for. Or perhaps what I didn't.

We were so young together, once, do you remember? We had our entire lives ahead of us, and at every shaky moment we held each other's hands. Who would I be without your friendship lining my backbone? How can I possibly do anything to steady yours, now?

Your babies are beautiful. You hold them as though you'd never done anything else in your life. As though no evil could ever keep you from them. These were not the lives we thought we had to live. But they are ours, now. And I will hold your hand, forever.

Precipitation

Rain, rain, nothing but rain. Mist in the morning, rows of vines draped in velvet fogs, you dress and drive and have no idea the land you traverse. No matter. The content of the people, welcoming you to their homes, their vines, their wines, is substance enough. You return home replenished.

A dear friend sends a question, and suddenly an interview lies potentially waiting in the wings for your return. Another friend leaves bowls, and forks, and a couch, and hopes your home will not echo too loudly upon your return. There is a life waiting on the other side of that ocean. You do not choose to claim it, but you do not leave it, either.

Our host speaks of his children, raised here, born there, how they keep a house, how they wait to figure out what direction to lean, what topography will be home in the future. You will not know, we say. Life does not reveal itself so easily. The wine speaks volumes. That is fine.

California

It's in the wind, it's a special scent on the breeze, it tells you you are elsewhere, you are away. California. Remembering the first time you reached its shores and ran giddy to the Venice Beach water. As though California was made to be seen from that car window.

Palm trees sway, the sun deceiving you into thinking it's warm. Turn on the A/C, won't you? but it's still winter and the sun sets in fires and pinks before you are ready.

I had to go out to the car after dinner. Middle of a vineyard, not a smidgeon of light around. The sky was painted its blackest black, and there they were: a trillion bright stars, twinkling away as though they'd always been there, despite the light polluted urban nights, despite my ignorance of their existence. A coyote rustled in the olive grove.

We are not in Kansas, anymore.

Touch Down

Everywhere mountains. Appearing through the mist, carrying sunrises, sunsets, snow flurries, respite. My parents ask me what I am doing with my life and I have nothing but question marks to return, nothing but obstacles to paint. Mountains.

I do not land, this time, I merely repack. Wash clothes, wash mind. Tomorrow another flight, another journey. I relish the feeling. I am haunted by the knowledge that I cannot keep this up.

It all looks so pretty on paper. You wish paper was living your life, instead.

Never Easy

What is there to say, that has not been said? We all know the story. The agony of another goodbye, the tearing flesh and gaping wounds, the salty tears, how impossibly far away the distant future. A week has passed; does it feel like hundred years or a minute? So hard to trust your dizzy heart, why bother.

Revel in gratitude. In the beauty of there being a home to nestle in at all. In remembering what this city meant and who it made you. In a head held high and the feeling that anything is possible. That is the magic; it follows you wherever you go. You remember.

New York does not disappear. It lies in wait for when you are ready. Your limbs tremble in the starting blocks. Your life begins, anew.

by Chance

...but if you knew the day I'd had and why I can't go home, you would understand why I need to sit here. There was no question, no request, she simply plopped her magazine down on the table and sat. Didn't buy a coffee, who was going to make her. She started to talk, and she did not stop.

Did you know I made my whole career just knowing how to type! RCA on 23rd street; of course, when I came to L.A. with my husband I could get a job anywhere, coming from New York. She grew up in the East Village, with the library on 10th, with her Russian parents making a new life for her, we didn't have brand names then, but of course, my sister always liked the material things. She spoke of how clean the city used to be, how it amazed her that people moved here, what was this, it was all a myth and no place to be. But I'm stuck. I moved back and I can't ever leave, that's how it is. It took an hour before she explained she had bed bugs. She spoke of her friend who lives at the Chelsea Hotel, of her fondness for Dickens, of when Scribner had a store on 5th avenue and you would wear your one coat for years. Equal parts old complaints and New York fire.

If I can tell you just one thing, she said, it is to travel. Don't get married too soon, don't have kids. I'm not sure I'd have them at all now, given the chance. Travel, see the world, enjoy your own life. There'll be time for the rest later. New York is good for the time in between. When you are not too young, not too old. It's amazing.

Where I'd Happily Drown

The way the sun rises over water tanks, brick buildings, graffitied walls.
The way traffic flows on the sidewalk and you never get stuck.
The way the population on the subway excludes no one, there is every color, there is every style.
The way dreams are made, and used, and broken but never run out.
The way walking a million street corners still leaves a million more to discover.
The way subway tremors and delivery clatter are weaved into even silence.
The way buildings expand while neighborhoods shrink.
The way everything changes, and everything feels the same.

The way I stood on the subway platform, and felt like I belonged, like I knew who I was and was her unshakeably.

I talk a big talk about feeling like myself in New York, but it turns out it's true. I don't make excuses for myself here.
This is my home.

M Train

The J train came, the Z. I waited on the platform, such bright sunshine, knowing full well the M would come. The first moment alone since I arrived. New York at my feet (New York is at nobody's feet) and where should I go first? Content just to get on the M, ride out the stations, recognize the sounds of their names. Changing trains at West 4th. As though not a day had passed.

Perhaps you have to get away for a bit to appreciate it; to see the city again and not be blind to it. The little child sleeps in his stroller, oblivious to all the noise... I try to feel, I try to muster up some emotion, but it's not there. Like in the brain study, looking at a picture and trying to fake emotion.

But what emotion is home? It's not. It's baseline. It is you.

"You" doesn't need reflection. That's the luxury of being.

I got off on 23rd street, called a familiar voice. Turned a familiar corner. As though not a day had passed. The spirit of New York courses through your veins. It is you.

Après Moi

I
must go on
standing.

You can't
break that
which isn't
yours.

Chelsea Days

Orphan puppy is not my dog, anymore. 17 years and living with her aunt; the 15th floor on 15th street is a sunny way to spend one's days. Perhaps she remembers. The apartment is full of sea shells, how odd. I am unfazed. We walk down to Morton Street, arm in arm, we wait while she walks the other dog (he hasn't forgiven me), I wish I could be overwhelmed but I find the Zagat in the bookshelf where it always is. Everything is how it always is. The stairway smells faintly of laundry detergent. Pigeons at the window. The new roommate lives in my room; it looks the same, but it is not.

The cab follows familiar streets. Always that impatient standstill on Houston. On the Lower East Side, a hundred new bars have opened. You tell her about things; it's as though not a day had passed. You revel in the luxury of normalcy. It is too cold to walk the bridge home, anyways. Red wine tastes the same. A full moon travels across the New York City night.

Who are you? Why did you come here, and what do you hope to find?

The questions amass. The answers grow fonder by their absence.

Sunday Brunch

I can't decide
if it's like I never left

or like I was never
here
at all.

Echo

It was on the AirTrain it hit. The skyline spread out in the distance; small, grey. I said to my sister, Well that's that. I can't leave it again. I was lost to it in an instance. Waiting for the New Jersey train to take us there, I danced around the platform, like a child.

But once we were on those streets, once New York was safely in my reach again, once everything was right there, how calm my senses. I know this place. I know that street corner, that those buildings will tower up at the end of that avenue, nothing is strange, new, undiscovered. The pasta factory looked the same, the sunset over the Williamsburg bridge, the subway voice. I rang the buzzer to a familiar door on Morton Street and she had no idea I was coming. It was as though I had never left. We found them at the bar and it was as though not a moment had passed. I slipped neatly into my New York City grid and I can't believe I was ever gone.

I go to bed feeling nothing but sleepy. At the other end of the loft lie hearts that overwhelm me with their mere presence. At the edge of the river lies an island that knows my name when I forget it myself. There is nothing to say, nothing to digest. For a moment, for a minute, I am whole.

Carry Me Home

The bartender plays that song for you, he smiles when you burst into a million happy pieces, you cannot help yourself. Just come back, after, she says, and you know you will. He called you today, and you have a place to stay, you have good reasons to come back and you will, but today it doesn't matter.

Today the bartender plays that song and all the rampant stress falls to the wayside, it doesn't matter either. Nothing does. A ghost from your past, from so many years ago, sends you a picture of words you scribbled, such terrible handwriting even at 20, in the front cover, and it couldn't have come at a better time. the basis of all my crazy adventures and ambitions in my life. Oh, Jack. Ten years later and am I not living it now? Is this not the dream? To weigh no more than your suitcase, to always carry a ticket in your back pocket?

And all the anguish of months in limbo, all the nights of doubt, they disappear. Your alarm rings three hours from now. Tomorrow, at this time, you are in New York.

That is what matters.

Tomorrow, I'm coming home.

T minus

Do you know, there was a moment, there were moments, when I was too panicked about all there was to do, all there was to finish, all there was to pack up and clear out, that I forgot, that I didn't realize, that I couldn't see... and then there was a nerve in me that began to sing, there was this buzz that traveled through my body and it felt like that moment just before, just before the everything and you're so scared but you just want it to begin because once it hits you, you are in it, you are golden, you are free, and I began to laugh for no reason and cry for no reason and I saw it so clear, so close.

Do you know, in a few days, I go to New York?

Do you know, in a few days, I'm going Home?

Brave New Year

I dreamed I traveled. Over and over, the drunken sleep of morning repeated itself in variations of trains, subways, transit halls, and underground escalators. Like a broken record, the scenario played out where I was constantly in motion, constantly about to go.

The thing is, though, that I spent more time in between trains, more time on the platform, than I actually did going somewhere.

Dreams speak so loudly, sometimes. It's impossible not to hear what they are saying.