remembering home

Before I lived in the great Midwest, I called New York home.  People asked me when I got to school, "the city or the state?" and I always found the question bothersome because to me 'New York' means New York - the city.  It is the only city I have truly loved.  No, I was not born and raised there and I never had to "make it" there as an adult either, but it was the last place I called home before I created my own home. 

This is also the place that my parents and family will say good-bye to this week as a new phase of life begins.  Sadly, only my mother will oversee the transition out of our space, our home and into a new one {in Pennsylvania}.  Had this been a "normal" departure, perhaps we would have know when we left in August that it would be the last time but life does not always happen easily.

This view may be the thing I will miss most.  From the kitchen, living room and my bedroom - downtown Manhattan.  I look out and I see peace in the constancy of the buildings that rise stoically above all of the human noise, human bustle, human worry.  They are the same, regardless of weather or temperament.  The air up high {floor 12} is quieter - the vertical space diminishing the crowd below.

I look out and I also see life.  I walk outside and feel that I breathe life.  There is just so much life here - every building, every set of lit windows in the night, every car clogging the street represents at least one life.  The lives of people who are moving, creating, connecting, loving, participating {also despairing, yearning, badgering and everything else that comes with brokenness}.

There is stuff happening here.

There are distracting noises, ugly smells, unhappy people who knock into you, dirty streets, squeaky subways cars, loud taxis and sometimes gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe - but not always. 

There is also rest and calm, a place for just being and a place for a family.