My [New York City] Love Affair

He plays the beat on white plastic buckets turned upside down on the corner of W. 4^th and 6^th Avenue. And it’s the sweetest beat I’ve ever heard so I take the headphones out from both ears and sit for awhile. I think about how far the universe can actually go. I write a couple verses in my notebook and then continue on my way. On the next block I walk by a man surrounded by bags and old blankets, and as my keys jingle in my hand he looks at them and then at me, our eyes meet and his pierce mine like he doesn’t have a door to unlock tonight. And I stop for a second but I don’t know what to do so I keep walking. It’s getting colder and the wind circles down around my neck so I dig out the navy blue and white striped scarf I shoved down to the bottom of my bag this morning. I wrap it tightly around my head a few times and think about moving to San Diego. What is with these places that are sunny and warm all the time? ...forget about it. I walk a few more blocks and up the three flights to my apartment. Last night one of the infamous neighbors who shares my alleyway yelled at me, "Shut the fuck up!" ...I was a little caught off guard since I was in the middle of an animated conversation. But it was after midnight and I realized at that moment that to him, I'm the one who has become the annoying neighbor keeping him up at night with my phone calls. 

It's been a full year since my return to the city and it couldn't have been better if I'd written it myself.  I guess I sort of did. The holidays are back again and with them come the expected spiced rum and hot apple cider, ice skating and tree lighting ceremony, office parties. But everything seems different when I'm in the middle of a love story that makes me want to don a paper crown and drink my soup straight from the bowl while wearing superhero pajamas. You could say It's a Wonderful Life.

A few weeks ago I helped put on the 2^nd Annual Toy drive for SOMWA. The SOMWA Foundation is an acronym for “Survivors of Mothers with AIDS," and was founded by Shacazia Brown, who lost her own mother to AIDS at the age of 23, overnight becoming the legal guardian to all of her siblings.   http://www.thesomwafoundation.com/home.html

I first met Shacazia a year ago and she told me, “I want to go to Africa, can you help make that happen?” Ten months later she was on her way and staying with my sister Neema's parents. When Shacazia returned from her visit, she shared with me that with the help of SOMWA, and with a newly formulated plan, she'll be able to build a new desperately needed primary school in the village of Kajiado, where she stayed. And just like the fairy dust that makes you fly when you think happy thoughts, next October I will be traveling with her and a group back to Kenya to start construction of the new school. Bangerang.  

I’m on a holiday high, 'tis the season...

Holidaze

If I’m being honest, I think I owe it to myself and to anyone else reading, to write a few words pertaining to what happened next. There’s always another page, always another story, always a next.

It’s been slightly over one month since my return to the big city. It has blurred by in a mixture of express trains, walk-up buildings, and quite entertaining dates when I can find the time. I'm in real estate, I hear myself casually drop at least three times a day, maybe because I'm proud of it, maybe because I'm prospecting, or perhaps just because I've begun to breathe it every waking moment. You have to, this is New York City. Go hard or go home.

Coming back to New York was a multi-faceted experience. Everything looked different and the same all at once. I was a new me, I had a new perspective, I was better, stronger. But no matter how far I had come, some things were still there, as expected, waiting. They begged to be reckoned with, beckoned my temptation and I fell for it...but only for a second.

More often then not I find myself thinking about my time in Africa. I think about how even though I so strongly wanted everyone to feel it, to learn from it, to understand it...I've come to accept that it really was for no one other than myself. I'm the only one who can truly understand, who can truly learn from it, who can bring to mind in a single heartbeat the kids, the smells, the sound of Kenya. And I keep it with me, every day, along side my grocery list and taxi receipts and weekend plans. Most people don't have the time it takes to truly hear you, but all in all, I realize I don't need them to.

It's true what they say about reciprocity, you know. When you're finally ready, when you're finally done, when you can finally say goodbye...it doesn't matter if the other person is there to hear you, to know it. You won't need them to know either way. Because the only one who ever really needed to say goodbye...was you.

‘Tis the season...Christmas in New York. Coffee burns my tongue as I sit behind a window watching the snow fall; I think about plans to ice skate in Central Park and new romance amidst apple cider and spiced rum. New beginnings, new endings, and an anticipation of the unknown. Love Actually and Miracle on 34th Street play repeatedly on DVD players and TBS specials, the tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center is advertised in the New York Times, and once again I know...anything seems possible.