Abundance (New York)


Abundance. 

That's what really strikes me about New York. There is always so much. 
Late yesterday afternoon as I rode the jolting greyhound through the misty rain I felt such a sense of relief. It's been a long month and half and too long since I have adventured somewhere that my heart has yearned to go. 
As I began to recognize fields and tree configuration and the misty outline of the Newark airport, I strained to see my first glimpse of that skyline through the rain. And then the road rose up and outer towering bus upon it and there, spread out to the east was the familiar spikes and towers pointing majestically against the fast moving rain clouds and my breath was stolen from my lungs. Home. 
Regardless of my choices in life, specifically the one to move out of New York City, this city will always feel like it's a part of me, that it holds a piece of me. It broke my heart a little bit when I left, but still I feel I am where I am supposed to be, for now. 
My heart pounded, my nose pressed against the greyhound glass as the city rose higher as we approached through the turbulence of New Jersey.  The freedom tower glowing like a beacon on the south end of the island, imperious and strong in it's solitariness. My own quiet kind of homecoming. 
Once through the tunnel and into the city I was overwhelmed by the familiar energy. 
      New York City hums. It swings along in it's own human rhythm different than any other city I've ever been to. 
I disembarked and carried my small weekend bag up the escalator and into the rush that is port authority. 
People everywhere. I felt a broad smile sneak across my face as the senses on my skin prickled, remembering this feeling of complete overload. I smiled at a girl and her pale face jerked in my direction, and then she returned it, surprised. That was one thing about when I lived here, I got so drained just fighting for myself that I lost the ability to share my own joy with strangers. I have never felt so completely alone, as if I could disappear and no one would know or care or notice. Being swallowed by the void/abundance. 

See here's the thing. I've been thinking about life a lot lately, about all of the things we are presented and given. In the past few months I've been overwhelmed with things that wouldn't necessarily be considered positive. But through the tangled, drama-tastic day to day, I've had the chance to work on very rudimentary things within myself. Boundaries, clear communication, digging into my own spirituality and connecting to what it is I really want and respect. I started looking at my life not as a giant mess, or tangle of negativity, but instead, of a giant incoming of abundance. 
"Look at all these lessons I get to learn and work on!" I told myself as I went for my third walk of the day, just to get out of our little four bedroom row home in the middle of suburbia. But really, as I thought about it, I could really see that the abundance flooding my life was just that, complete abundance. What I chose to do with that, how I chose to perceive it, really was my choice.      
Which this realization was redoubled when I looked at New York and the incredibly intense and varied amounts of overwhelm I see here, the overwhelming abundance of, well, everything. Which you can chose to be overwhelmed by, or you can learn to harness it and fly. 

This morning I am waking up in my old living room. My old roommates kind enough to let me crash on the couch. Everything sounds and smells and looks so familiar: the hiss of bus breaks and traffic noise and sirens sneaking in the front windows; the sounds of the apartment, the way the front bedroom door squeaks when you open it and the ding of the doorbell. The voices of the twins ringing down the hallway. It's almost like I'm home, and yet. I don't fit here quite the way I used to. Nor should I. I am not quite the same woman who pounded these sidewalks and rode the A train all the way home. 

So today, is Friday and I have the whole of my time here ahead of me. I feel giddy with gratitude.  I want to stop time and walk through the remembered moments of living here, being able to look people full in the face as I pass their halted forms on the streets, moving through frozen traffic at Columbus circle and walking into my old school, a janitor frozen stooped, mopping the stage. I want to hold on to my moments here. My hugs with fleeting friends who are off to airports and bus stations and other teeming cities far away. I want to ride the subway late at night and not read my book I want to look into the faces of the people and I see the lives that they contain. I want to soak in the overwhelming abundance of this place and take it home with me. Wherever my home seems to be. 
But time doesn't stop. I'll get up in a few minutes and scrounge something for breakfast and then maybe take the familiar train ride up to the cloisters and soak in a little of New Jersey burning, trees and leaves alight with the fire of fall across the Hudson. 
And the next few days will fly by and I will be flying within them. And that's okay.  That's abundance too. 

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