Hello Again!
Every once in a while it pays to visit New York city.
It doesn’t really matter where you’re from or where you live. Even a short touch-down makes an impact. But it has to be in “the city“, not one of the friendly, neighborhood boroughs (meh).
Either you will shake your head at the insanity of it all and want to head home as quickly as possible because you can’t take the heat (even in winter).
Or like me, you will breathe it in deeply to embrace and absorb that frenetic pace and energy. Hoping that it will sustain you for some time, even once you leave and head back into the more calm and collected auras that the rest of the world seems to desire.
Really, all it takes is a couple of days. It feels like a massive wave of energy is sweeping through you and over you – one that is peppered with jolting sparks – probably like the effects of a performance enhancing drug (that’s just my imagination speaking, ya’ll!).
They don’t call it the big apple, the best-est and the baddest with the most-est, for nothing.
Two days is all it took for me. I’m still feeling that jolt – no doubt it will level off as I adapt back into tamer surroundings (i.e. anywhere else in the world).
Oh okay, let me just say it, I ♥ NY.
If you ever felt like you needed some shaking and some stirring in your life, don’t wait, just head for the city. It’s go,go,go,go…where people only know how to move fast, think fast, act fast.
Has anyone ever seen an ambling pedestrian on the streets of Manhattan? I rest my case.
All you have to do is be there and simply let the whirlwind swirl around you and lift you up.
P.S. If you are from anywhere else in the country, be prepared for New Yawkers to look at you like you are a totally foreign being. And, god forbid, if you are from south of the Mason-Dixon line, you may as well be an alien from outer space.
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P.S. Again – Check out this amazing time lapse short video that I happened upon. This stunning video captures the essence and energy of NYC like no other. Just click on the picture below to watch. And love.
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The Yin and Yang of Location
Just over a year ago – and I remember it very well – I was living in Mumbai. I remember writing about my umpteenth (three decades plus, if you must know) anniversary of first entering the US of A. I also began wondering whether I would spend the next few years continuing to live in India or whether I would get the opportunity to return home to the US anytime soon.
I had reached the point where I yearned to return, not because I didn’t like it there so much as just that certain yearning that one gets for home. You know the one? And while I yearned, at that time and place, it wasn’t that obvious when I would head back.
That unexpected, eye-opening experience, no immersion, of living in India is something I will always cherish. Even now, I can’t seem to be able to let go! I keep up (am addicted you could say) with what is happening in that country, alternatively feeling hope and despair as I watch events from afar.
But at that time, that yearning for my home in the US was not going anywhere fast.
And then just like that, quite out of the blue, a tremendous opportunity to return fell into my lap. I grabbed it. I’m not stupid. 😉
I just celebrated my first anniversary at home and was reflecting on how I really feel to be back.
It’s that location thing again – instead of just one home, I’ve been forced to have two. I know some people look at my going back and forth between the two and wonder how or why I do it. If I dwell too much on only that back and forth motion, I can easily begin to wonder myself. So, I look for everything that is going right for me and count myself lucky. And lo and behold, I find myself embracing my (crazy!) lifestyle instead.
It’s that yin and yang thing again – I have the hustle and bustle of a big city during the week and the quiet, calm and friends of my small town home during the weekends. I couldn’t ask for more. Plus, I still have my connections to India, stronger now than ever because of my stint there. Back there for work a few times each year gives me just enough time for great visits with family and friends too.
So on reflecting now, it begs the question, how could I be this lucky?? 🙂
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“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned”.
— Maya Angelou
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 