Four Months in New York City
It's time to travel again — this time home for the holidays.
I write now in Newark airport. It isn't yet 7:00 AM. People around me — masked, tired — bustle about with carry-on bags and passports in hand. A lukewarm airport coffee is an anti-climactic finale to my first three and a half months living in a new place. An eventful stint, certainly, though the thought of being home for the holidays beckons.
Today I am leaving New York City. Writing that, in plain language, makes this seem pensive and sad. But that isn’t the case.
I leave today not for good, not for long, and not to a very far place. But there’s still a great nostalgia that follows me.
As I made the jaunt to the airport today, the city — blinking and alive well before sunrise — seemed to call out to me. I saw sharp city lights that got smaller with distance but never seemed to dim. The bustle of a proud people embedded in history and reputation. Buildings reaching skyward like they’ve got somewhere else to be. Everything in the city called my name though nothing waved goodbye.
This is the city. Pieced together with parts of the whole world. A truly American mosaic and cultural soup. It can reject you outright and leave you full of defeat, but also New York can make you feel as if you never can and never will live anywhere else in the world.
Home is calling me — Southern California. The holiday season is upon us and it's time for a journey. Sunny and warm and, to me, forever idyllic. The place I grew up and the place I call home (one of several places, now). Family and friends. The neighborhoods I know so well and the school grounds where so many years took place. The familiarity of the roads and cafes and smells. The same cafes; the neighborhood gym. Everything at home is calling my name.
As I’ve written about before while living abroad, to know what home really is, you must first leave. Leaving is what gives you something to remember, a comforting thought to look back on. Home for me provides the memories to comfort me when I’m away and something to look forward to seeing once again. A light to look for in some undefined, constant future.
Returning from travels can be a mixed bag. As excited as you may be to share all you've seen and learned, sometimes it can be overwhelming to listen to. A swarm of emotions and perhaps un-relatable experiences that you are trying to make relatable.
Today I leave New York City. I’ll go home to find out what I’ve missed and to share what I’ve seen elsewhere. The trip is temporary, as they always are. But I’m ready to unplug from the rapidity of city life and take in a few slow, easy moments. I’ll make time to write, naturally, but at home I write different things compared to when I’m on the road. More fiction, surely.
I’m eager to get there so I can make an abrupt change in routine and pace. Fall into old habits and revisit old haunts. Find the people I’ve missed and discover why I left in the first place.
Home is pulling me toward it, though I find myself sprinting in the same direction anyway.
Today I leave New York City.
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