Descent to New York

New York City.  A week ago I approached it from the tomorrow of Japan and this evening from the morning of the west coast.  There are so many ways to divide the globe and the world.  Days and nights and mornings.  Easts and wests and norths and souths.  Waking could be in any place.  I'm living in some extended interstice.  San Diego seemed so foreign from New York and from my Midwestern upbringing and I wonder what makes it so.  What creates the fabric of a culture?  How far and wide is it?  What does it contain?  The clothes are different, the accent, the smiles, the sun, and the air.  And their composite makes it unique.  I find myself remembering Japan in the kanji on chopstick wrappers, in Japanese names, and fusion culinary influences.  But there is little else to bring me back to it.  It is a nostalgia that is growing distant without even whispering goodbye.

And as the people around me are thoroughly embedded in the lives that they have been living the past three years, the past ten, or twenty, I find myself somewhat amnesiac.  Where was I these past three years?  It is a though I have just awakened and feel a need to be like those around me, a part of this world, with a purpose, with an explanation.  But I'm still nowhere.  The part of me that is seeking ground is doing so in projections of the future, in possible opportunities, resources, and planning.  There is little of me that is looking back to a time and place which now seems irrelevant, though beautiful and irreplaceable.

We flew over Manhattan during our descent to Laguardia, the fire of this city merely glowing embers from above, so soft and peaceful.  All the streets were clear and visible at once, something impossible to witness when walking the pavement or riding the tracks.  All the people in eye's view and yet nothing of them available until landing, until boarding the bus, walking home, stepping into the upcoming years of exploring the various boroughs and alleys that comprise this magnificent jungle.  Each ember is a fire waiting to explode, a story waiting to explore, an endless world of possibilities.