New York City

The United States of America, I regret to say, has been uninspiring in terms of a place of permanent residence, for a long time. In its defense, this probably has less to do with its normalcy and more to do with its perceived singularity, its place as part of a much larger whole. I have yearned for other places, and the many things -- overly-philosophized as they are -- that come with travel and movement. This attempts to explain the constant coming and going, the life free of exhorbant possessions, that has been the past few years. It also explains why this past week in New York City is so significant to me.

The moment I landed I had this refreshingly free, innate desire to put on shoes and walk and walk and walk and walk. The first day I walked four hours from Park Slope in Brooklyn to West Village in Manhattan, and the days that followed, followed suit. It seems unimportant, but I distinctly remember arriving in Marsailles -- the then declared cultural capital of Europe, or some award by a similar name -- one day last August, and planting myself on a hostel couch with a book for five days. My periodic adventures out would be to buy food I would cook later in a kitchen. I could not be bothered by the exploration one was supposed to do, the things one was supposed to see. I remember not ever wanting to feel that stagnant again while traveling, so how different New York was.

The grand parks and the prestigious universities and the tallest skyscrapers and amazing food around every corner and then the tragic memories of a day now more than ten years old, they inspired me, for the first time I can remember, to be my own citizen again. It won't happen for some time, but it was nice to imagine home, in a futuristic sense, that may yet someday come. It was nice to stand on some real American history that happened one day back in 1776 when Washington marched troops to protect the little island from redcoats. It was good to walk through Chinatown and only find out later one of the major intersections was the setting for Gangs of New York. It was good to settle my long time personal quarrel of traveling to far off cities without seeing the greatest city on Earth just at my doorstep. It was great to just be and be excited.

But for now it is Belgium, and later somewhere else I do not know yet but that is not my country. A friend told me that they did not know how I do it; their heart would hurt all the time. A fair statement, because it often does hurt, as it did on a plane with the New York skyline fading in the distance, the Empire State Building and Liberty Tower presiding above the rest. But we are never really alone on trips like these, and I often end up curiously stumbling after someplace new where I do not know anyone, again.