Now You’re Back in New York
It was a relief to get back to New York. Though-completely-exhausted-after-not-sleeping-in-nearly-48-hours, I deboarded at JFK and breezed through immigration (getting that final stamp in the passport), and continued through to the Air Train and the subway, getting the right transit cards-the right trains immediately w/a profound sense of familiarity. I made it to Genet’s apartment, petted her cat, Azze, plopped my stuff down, laid down for about 20 minutes then went down the street to AT&T and got a new plan and an iPhone. I kept just looking at NY people and smiling – so good-looking and friendly (especially seeming so as everyone effortlessly understood my English except for the places where they understood my Spanish (in Genet’s neighborhood where some places are solomente español). I had bags around my eyes, but I was home! –I kept going, up to 181st St. to straighten out my bank accounts at Citibank. I went to the diner across from Genet’s and ordered pancakes and bacon, then decided I needed to get home to pass-out and be there to let Genet in who was coming in on a different flight in a few hours.
I spent my time in NY still in travel-mode, going to the Statue of Liberty (open inside for the first time since 2001), the Yankees World Series victory parade, all the regular spots like Grand Central, Empire State Building, Times Square. I took my laptop out to neighborhoods where I would like to live-in-next and wrote about Israel, Jordan, and Mali (all this stuff still crammed-up in my head - finally coming-out after time-in-one place and a good internet connection). I visited friends and co-workers, handing-out miniature Great Pyramids as presents, and also just rested a lot as I got tired fast.
In some ways, New York started feeling too familiar. It has a way of wanting to pull-you-in right away – especially me, knowing its streets so well, having a different life-stage memory through each neighborhood I re-visited. It felt like I needed to get with the pace, get a routine, be on a mission – all this only strengthened by all the hard work and energy I poured into the past ten years of my life rushing through its streets to make art, make money, make friends, make ‘it.’
I already feel a lot of things that I want to keep from my traveling lifestyle – simple things from other countries, like drinking fresh juice in South America (as much as I can to that caliber), and mainly things from my month+ in Berlin. There’s no way I can bend New York to that more-laidback pace, but hopefully I can keep part of my own mind there when I need to. I think I’m still figuring out what differences I see in America after a year-around-the-world. I definitely get a feel for it having the best & the worst of everything: we’ve got the best restaurants but also the worst (and most-plentiful) crappy fast food joints, we’ve got the best-looking people and best athletes but also the most pointlessly obese, the most expensive stores and the best bargain shops, some of the smartest-progressive people but some of the most-stubborn. So far the U.S.A. is more clearly a place you have to sift through, it’s not like Europe where every street is pristine, but if you turn the right corner through a string of Subways-Duane Reades-McDonalds-Chase-Citibank-KFCs you might just run into a one-of-a-kind gem.
