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[SF's] fine
But it ain't home
New York's home
But it ain't mine
No more

Sorry, Neil Diamond--I simply had to paraphrase you a bit there.

Well, after four days in the sweltering concrete jungle of NYC, I've returned to the cool, comfortable embrace of San Francisco. Happily donning a sweater, I am pleased to report I have relearned what my face looks like without beads of sweat covering it and pouring down its pale, smooth slopes.

The past week of my life has been a veritable tornado of activity, emotions and surprises. I'd expected some measure of bittersweetness in my visit to NYC, but I was unprepared for just how powerful those emotions would turn out to be.

After four days surrounded and engulfed by the love of family and friends, touched by how many went out of their way to spend time with me, moved by what NYC itself still means to me, I returned to the city I now call home, only now I have new perspective on what the word "home" really means. This perspective has shaken me deeply and yet it is not a complete surprise to find I feel this way.

No home remains from my childhood other than my aunt Miriam's in Brooklyn, where I took some of my earliest steps and where I spent a wonderful Saturday afternoon surrounded by family. Once my grandparents left Brooklyn in 1985, followed by scores of great aunts and uncles, there remained only Miri's house. And it is, by far, more my permanent home than anywhere else. 20 years in Los Angeles and I have as much emotional attachment to that city as I do to the impressive booger I affixed to the bottom of my airplane seat as a gift to the next traveler in 16D.

New York is where my roots are, where the majority of my family is, where many of my dearest friends live, where I spent the most significant years of my adult life, where my dreams take me. There is a reason why I left and I do not regret that difficult decision. The path I've been on for the last two years is one of tremendous growth, discovery, creativity and, most of all, contentment. But San Francisco is not home. It is a fabulous city that I am enjoying immensely, waiting to determine just how long my residency here will last and where the next chapter of my life will unfold.

I do not idealize New York City; on the contrary, I fully acknowledge the struggles I faced there and appreciate having been able to toss them from my weary shoulders. I am not the adult girl I was when I called the streets of Manhattan my home. It took leaving for me to become the woman I am now, the woman who now knows how to rise above the day-to-day struggles and see exactly how fucking far she can go now that her attitude matches her abilities and her strength matches her smarts.

My visit with loved ones (among them the city itself) was an extended look into an enormous mirror held up to my changed face, body and mind. It takes looking at yourself through the eyes of those who truly know you and deeply love you, entrenched in a city that plays on your every emotion, letting down your guard and allowing those emotions room to explode--that's what it took for me to recognize and truly appreciate this remarkable person I've become. This is the person I want to be if and when NYC ever claims me again. And this is the person who is on a thrilling path, no matter where it ends up taking me.

P.S. Thank you Christopher, for dragging your ass all the way to LAX just to buy me a cup of coffee on my brief layover and for reassuring me--with your infinite clarity about who I am and what I'm trying to do--that I am indeed getting there.

Posted by ayelet at August 2, 2006 09:34 AM