Heart, meet sleeve.

... and so it begins.

It's been just a little more than a day since I've touched down in NYC, settled into my flat (yes, I'll always insist on calling it this) by Union Square and attempted to readjust my jetlagged sleep patterns to some semblance of normalcy. It was appropriate that my plane departed from Long Beach last night at that peculiar point of day - twilight (no reference to the book or movie, haven't read or seen either), because as we lifted off over water before making a grand U back toward the east, it was hard to tell whether the day was beginning or ending.

Moving to NYC has been a long-time coming, something I've looked forward to for years upon years on end. And to think that I'm currently sitting in residence, in the thick of it all, is just bizarre. It's not anticlimactic or anything or everything that I imagined it would be.

It.

Just.

Is.

And I love it. People have always said (and I've always agreed) that the best mentality you can have going somewhere is to be anticipating and moving toward something, rather than dreading and fleeing from something. To this end, I've always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to be in NYC at some point in my life, better younger than older, better naive than jaded. And now, it's really happening.

Not to say that getting to this point, of starting a new life on a different coast, has always been the end all be all of my existence. Far from it. As much as this experience will be a new book in a collection of many (I hope) that chronicle different fragments of my life, I also recognize that not much will change in the coming weeks, months, years. At the core of it all, it isn't my expectation that everything will miraculously be okay and that my joint work and passion will combine forces to forge a new kind of reality. But it is my hope, and I think that's the more important point.

I don't want everything to be dramatically different - I think at a different point in life I would have expected this much from the fresh start, blank slate that NYC has to offer. Instead, I want to expand my experiences subtly, and revel in the nuances of change.

I hope.

I think.

I dream.

I'm going to get better at blogging regularly. It's a must. I think, over the course of these next few (fill in the blank here), I'll want to share with the blogosphere my thoughts and experiences, because let's face it: part of the thrill of starting anew is being able to bounce ideas and life plans off the people who know you best (and those who know you not at all). What good are life experiences if they aren't shared, right?

Which takes me to today, to now, to the present. I had a good chunk of time to just wander around the surrounding streets yesterday, and I reveled in how good it felt to put foot to pavement and let whimsy guide me through the city. I set my iPod on a playlist, kept one ear earphone free so I could hear NY with above the lull of my soundtrack, and turned corners when I felt like it. I ducked into random shops and snapped photos of memorable sights and people, and chatted to the occasional stranger because hey, why not?

It was fantastic.

All the people I pass by on the street, the life and the things happening everywhere I look - this is like coming home to something I've been missing all this time, but hadn't really known existed. There's so much life here that it almost hurts to breathe in the energy of it all.

And more than that, my feeling is that everyone's in this together, in this pseudo-waiting place. People in NYC are living in the moment, but also looking for THE moment, the spark that will make their hard work, great risks and high rent all worth it. The city's just brimming with passion for life - musicians on the street, thinkers in cafes, even the Evangelist stalking down the street. The feeling is infectious.

Someone wise once told me that everyone comes to New York City looking for something - a job, peace of mind, passion, themselves. It's a city of restless souls sifting through a transition from who they were to who they want to be, and it's the place all my thoughts and experiences have pointed me toward.

More than a physical space, less than a metaphysical place.

Somewhere in between.

LIVE WELL. LOVE MUCH. LAUGH OFTEN.

Here's to a new beginning.