I'll leave Seattle on November 27 and arrive at Penn Station in Manhattan on either the evening of November 30 or the evening of December 2, depending on whether I stop in D.C. on the way.
I feel like a six-year-old about eighteen days out from Christmas.
My travel plans have changed dramatically from the original concept and I am very happy with those changes, with one exception: I won't be able to visit my friends @martymankins & his lovely daughter @tiffmankins in Salt Lake City on my way. I was going to do a road trip and head where I pleased, including SLC; alas, I got rid of the car. And I'm pretty sure I won't be tackling car ownership again for a good while.
I'll be taking the train. I must say, I do love taking the train.
So I'm getting to go a full month early. I'll be staying with my old friend Bill in Hamilton Heights for the first couple months as I get my bearings. This was enormous surprise and a colossal stroke of good luck. I was fully braced to watch my (meager) savings get drained as rent while I found work and learned my way around, but now I have a two month head start. I am insanely, ridulously grateful, and so happy I made these great friendships so many years ago. (Bill is the since-childhood bff of my own beloved friend Bernie - who lives near D.C., which is why I might be stopping there on the way.)
I have these old aspirations I've never let die. I want a rich life experience doing things I adore (or need to fall back in love with): taking classes, writing novels & plays, acting, working in the arts all the damn time, finding some way to teach, because I for some reason really strongly feel like I want to teach...something, somehow. Gazing in awe at incredible architecture, at 300 and 400-year-old buildings, finding little pockets of history that move and inspire me. Renewing older friendships and making new ones. Meeting the online friends in person for once. Traveling around to other spots along the Eastern Seaboard and in the South (and eating all their food). Really living and experiencing the singular sensation that is New York City. Learning peoples' stories, listening to and talking with the sorts of souls who come by to hang out in the greatest city in the Western Hemisphere. People who are perhaps radically different than me, but with whom have at least that primal pull in common. Falling in love. I'd love that.
But I also expect to meet myself again. Come back to myself, whatever that means. Back to life, but now with all the stuff I've collected along the way so far. Lessons, perspectives, knowledge and understanding. A more fully grown mind. I want to be happy and healthy, regardless of where I go, but I think my best shot at that right now is heading into the old, edgy, urban soul of New York.
This has been a long time in coming. I do feel like this is a good time.
I can't wait.
