Vacancy

We clean. We sneeze through dust clouds and wade through the years of trinkets piled into this tiny Greenwich village apartment. The big interior design site wants to come by to photograph our home, and it doesn't take long to realize how much grime remains in corners unseen. She frets, I delight in the open windows, the higher ceilings. Daylight savings tricks me into thinking the day is young, and I adore forgetting dinner, weariness, while my hands smell of softsoap and clean.

She erases every trace of me in the bedroom, and I let her. How proud she is of her home. We joke of the madness of the house, squirrels on the fire escape and santa clause salt shakers in March. In the end it's an apartment 25 years in the making; we are who we are, with all our eccentricities. I go into her apartment and I think how much potential it has, if only... she says of the neighbor, and perhaps that's how we all feel. How much easier to find flaws in others, to say why don't they just..?, and how hard to do the same for oneself.

I roll silently in my self-righteousness before I try to shake it off, again. In the end, it's too lovely an opportunity to revel in the clear windows and polished porcelain, to waste time making yours what is not.

Reminders

It is good to be questioned, to have to put into words. See this city with more attentive eyes. Show someone else what makes it magic for me. We walk the streets up and down, tire ourselves and still don't get very far. The Village is calm, the city doesn't seem particularly big at all.

The little Spanish girl was not satisfied; if my parents lived in Utah, my sister in Sweden, and here I was only living with a friend, then where was my really real home? she asked.

This is it, I said. This is my really real home. And if she didn't believe me, at least I was convinced. This is my really real home, in the end.

Abridged

It was cold, too cold, there'd be other opportunities for a stroll and the trains run so frequently on weekdays. But before I knew it, I'd reached the Bedford Avenue entrance and was slowly making my way onto the Williamsburg Bridge.

Perhaps the wine helped, kept my legs warm. Perhaps it was the sweet remnants of invaluable friendship, still coursing through my veins and reminding me what an amazing thing that is. Here we are, in the City, all together, how blessed are we?, and I couldn't help but smile. As I climbed to the peak, my ears filled with Axl Rose in his youth and my step kept his quick beat. I felt like an animal released to pasture in the spring, I stretched my tired muscles and sang along.

The Williamsburg bridge, all steel beam prison and glimpses of the world, the city beyond, was nearly empty; lone bikers rode home in the opposite directions. The J train passed below, countless cars, but mostly I felt as though it were all mine, and, with it, so was the city. For that brief moment, how high I was. Literally, too. At the descent on the other end, I looked up and saw nothing but the night sky, and was again reminded how unusual that is. I was lowered past people's 12th story windows, saw the skyscrapers I know as friends disappear behind rising buildings. Considered that if I jumped from here it would still be an awfully long way to go.

And then, suddenly, deposited on Delancey Street as though the whole thing were a mirage. Crossing the Lower East Side streets, my Manhattan streets, as though Brooklyn weren't a world away and hadn't I been here all along? Turn a corner and there is Morton Street. You may act surprised, but in fact it is nothing unusual.

All roads lead to home, if you let them.

Block.

I stare at the screen. Scroll back over the pages. Read passages I adore, passages I can't stand to see, and consider where to begin. I can't tackle the ending, it breaks my heart. But after a few hours of strikethroughs, it seems I cannot tackle any other part either. Frustrated, I resign myself and whisper Tomorrow, but it makes me feel no better about today.

I took a long walk through the neighborhood today, to visit a friend in Chelsea. Walked through the projects and remembered how those exact streets had looked four years ago when we went there for a gallery stroll. I know them so well, now. I weaved through Saturday afternoon traffic until I got to the edges of the Meatpacking District, those few corners that are still seedy, dirty, decrepid. I love them. Then navigating through the maze that is the West Village, over the cobblestones, back to my beautiful Morton Street, to my New York City home.

Some days, New York appears more enchanted than others. Some days, simply by existing, by showing me streets I have not seen for a while, it reminds me of its magic, of its sweet secrets waiting to be uncovered. On days like that, all that has been can be easily forgotten, all the bad wiped away and I remember again why I came.

I don't know how I'll ever be able to leave.

Ultima Thule

They said there would be an ice storm. I woke up to glistening, frozen branches outside my window, but walked out to inches of cold, cold water all along Hudson Street. Miserable doesn't begin to cover it. The children stopped and played in every puddle between the swim lesson and the house. Their joy so contagious, I couldn't keep from dancing the last block myself.

I want this winter to be over. I always want winter to be over, but this year, it seems like such a continuous slap in the face.

Still, as I walked home from Hell's Kitchen last night, my back straight and my heels reassuringly even in their pace across the slippery streets, I couldn't help but feel happy about where I was. The grayer New York gets, the colder, the tougher, the dirtier, the more miserable, the more my heart paints curlicues and rainbows around its name. I miss Australia something fierce, the sun, the surf, the sweetness of the people and the ease of living, but this is my home.

This is my home.

New York, New York.

The dog smells of winter and burning woodchips. The streets are slow, navigating mounds of slush and deceptive pools of icy water. The snowfall picks up again. After hours of Brooklyn laughter, I made my way down Hudson Street to nestle in my jet lag and my home. White Horse lay quiet and cosy on its streetcorner, the bright red sign like a beacon of familiarity through the falling flakes. Last night, by the time I was on that E train riding towards Manhattan, the car filled with so many different types of people, all united by their place in the city, already I felt at home. Already, the beautiful trip of sunshine and new faces, of family and escape from reality, was dripping off my skin and disappearing into the gutter. How quickly it happens, and I almost wasn't sad to see it go.

Hours later, unable of course to sleep despite the promising start, I lay in my own bed, in my own sheets, with orphan puppy nestled into my armpit, tickling me with her content, deep breaths, devouring music like I had been starved for a month. (I suppose, in a way, I had). I could barely force myself to wait out one song before jumping to the next, trickling through playlists like they were Baskin Robbins flavors handed out on plastic trial spoons, letting each one slide down my taste buds and fulfill my senses before it was gone and I was on to the next.

Perhaps, tomorrow, I will remember what I until so recently had, that my feet danced on Australian soil and my life had not a care in the world. But as my Home seeps in to my pores and words yet again run rampant through my head, I can't help but giggle, my heart can't help but sigh. That is the magic, of home.

That is the magic, of New York.

Reception Lost

It is half an hour before our receiver can pick up any signal to get us to the internet. Four adults in a parked car on a street somewhere in South Australia, a computer in each lap, quietly busily whiling away precious minutes with the outside world.

The days in between are spent in the hammock, on a hike, watching dolphins, writing television, watching the sun set from a panorama window, taking pictures, getting angry, getting giddy, sleeping soundly, showering outdoors from the rainwater tank, mentally preparing for a day when this is all over.

Surprisingly, none of these days are filled with words. Surprisingly, my pen lies still by my bedside table. And however much I love this trip, part of me misses the person bursting with words. Part of me misses me.

I cannot now comprehend the sadness of leaving this land. But I anxiously await the happiness of homecoming. If I don't write another letter until then, I don't think it matters, in the end.

Civilisation

Once again tall buildings, wide streets. Unknown people and sprawling suburbs. We spend a relaxing evening with friends by the barbecue, chatting away the hours in our quaint and relaxed settings while the sun sets on beautifully groomed plumerias and quietly landing airplanes.

The warm water of Darling Harbour trickles through my lungs and revives me again. I miss the ocean the minute I get out. It occurs to me again that I am not cityfolk. It has been occurring to me for the past three decades.

It doesn't make me love New York any less.

I suppose, in the end, that's the trouble.

Aftermath

Vacation turns my mind to mush, words trickling out of the back of my head and I can't remember there was ever a story I wanted to tell.

But I read through words already written, unedited scribbles in a long scroll, large icebergs of tales longing to be melted and merged into one continuous whole, and I can't help but feel I am onto something.

My body revels in Australia. My skin darkens, my body wears itself out in the currents, my mind relaxes from its obsessive grasp on reality, and I am content.

But I read through words already written, and they remind me of their sparkle, of my incessant love for them. Vacation is beautiful, living out here could save my life, but oh, how New York carries the sparkle. Oh, how New York is home.

Bright Lights, Big City

A soft rain crawls through the valley. The sea is warm but tempestuous; my swim is unusually short. I dive instead into the pile of books I brought. Already, too few remain to sustain me. I pretend to ration them, knowing full well I am bound to fail.

I read over my journal, instead, trying to make sense of the months and the year that have passed. I realize large parts of them were omitted. Heart-wrenching episodes ignored, and I hypothesize that, being left un-recorded, in time they will become untrue. Good riddance, perhaps, if it is that easy.

In my latest book, so many familiar street corners. The Village butcher still run by the same name. The bar unfazed by the years. New York is constantly changing, ever a tide of people and places eventually swept out to sea and replaced, but it is still, perpetually New York. I take more comfort in that fact than in any other constant in my life. There aren't that many to begin with.

Now I am here. Wasn't I just in Times Square? he asks from the other end of the earth. As the days turn to months and to another year, I wonder if he will begin to doubt, if his life here will become untrue. Years from now, New York will fade into a distant memory. Will he know it from a trick of the lights?

Good riddance, perhaps, if it is that easy.

Rip Tide

My body collapses, my steps slow and I fall onto the sand. It's time for a break. But then I turn around, I see the sea rolling to shore, turquoise waves crashing one by one into white froth at the water's edge, and I cannot help myself: I am pulled back in. I dive quickly into approaching waves, swimming feverishly out, out to where the big swells are. I try to stand but the current is strong, it pulls me to the side and I fight it, fight it, until I simply let go and am swept away. Far away I spot it: the next big wave. I wait for it, gauge where it will crest, position my body just right, until I feel that familiar tug backwards, leap in, and surf all the way to shore in one long, overwhelmingly powerful roll. I immediately dive back out, let my body float across green and blue waters until the moment is right again.

Hours pass, I am oblivious to their steady gait. Nothing is relevant but the next wave, the next dive, the feeling of cool Pacific water against my skin. When we leave the beach, I stare at it from the house and long for it, immediately. Much later, I still feel the push and pull of the ocean on my body. Every breath a roll of the tide.

I am lost to sea. I am found.