New York or LA?
Q: New York or LA?
A: New York, obviously. There is nothing like waking up in a cocoon of a studio to meditate while life begins to pulse outside; the buzz can be felt from walls within walls. A new day and the organized chaos consumes every part of the whole. Energy. Aliveness. Possibility…
I splash water on my face and gravitate towards the elevator. Onto the street, I feel the breeze and can see the warm glow of morning reflecting on glass. The pouring of coffee happens a million times over in the apartments, on the streets, and in every café simultaneously. A salt room yoga class, an eclectic brunch date, acupuncture in a future pod of luminescent light beams. Five meetings from North to South, food from every culture and a fresh juice and matcha on every block.
A woman carries her golf clubs down 5th Ave, streams of conversations blur past me of deaths in families and award-winning poetry. Concrete, park, concrete, park, city block city block city block.
I’ve geared up for the day, fashion sneaks and a scarf, a change of clothes and my computer in check. I may be out till the wee hours, shapeshifting from day to night, I love New York.
The museums call me for a lunch-time view, and then I drop into an artsy boutique for a quick therapeutic retail check-in. I can box at the gym, listen to jazz in a basement, and eat lobster mac within hours. The people I meet inspire me and tear me apart while drilling me with the questions I crave, forging new pathways of thought. New York pushes me to an inner edge while it meets my natural level of intensity and the desired pace of fluidity.
You romance me like no other, I feel myself at home walking past every facet of humanity within one city block. I am both devastated by the suffering and overwhelmed by the beauty… the music, the screams, the falling in love and the whistle of the hustle train blowing by co-work spaces.
And then there is LA. I have loved you, and after overcoming my initial resistance, I embraced you fully. We have danced and we’ve hiked, we swam and walked the canals. Erewhon, you embrace and nourish me, as you have become the gravity of my every visit; I am so grateful yet I am nearly broke because of you. And it isn’t that I don’t love the ocean breeze, the flowers that bloom throughout the year and the epic Malibu vistas. It’s just that our time has come to an end…for now. LA, I no longer belong to you in the way I did before. The days of justifying traffic in exchange for the eternal spring weather just doesn’t make sense. The scene and seduction of what you offer no longer entice me in the same way. Thus in this tale of two cities, it turns out, it’s the same conclusion as it has always been. Home is where the heart is and New York, you have my heart.
