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Published: August 12th 2015
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For the last 2 weeks of July I spent my time in the North East, the first place I lived until the age of 5 and one of the only places I ever felt was a true home for me. I admit, I have enclosed my vision and experience of the NE in a cloud of romanticism. I love NYC, I always have. I've traveled a bit, not enough yet but it's still the greatest city I've ever been too. Of course I am deeply partial to NYC because generations of both my moms and dads side hail from the great city, I always wondered why my parents decided to move to Florida, of all places! Although Florida is part of a seemingly natural Jewish American migration I never quite fit in their. My Colombian routes vaguely came up through the years but never enough to feel an instinctual home. My direction was always the North East.
Daniel and i arrived in philli and spent most of our time in his home town of Cinnaminsom NJ. I instantly loved it because it reminded me of my first home of Long Island. The stores were local but their "local" characteristic was
not advertised as it is in newer, younger cities. It was just plain ol' local because it had been there for generations, the barber shop he got his first haircut, the cafe shop in Riverton,
renamed but still the same, the hoagie place, Primo Hoagies, nothing fancy, just always there, and maybe slightly updated with the times. It was old school local, not new school hipster-chic. Don't get me wrong, I adore the local brand of denver that my generation created, the organic, the farm to table, the homemade/handmade stuff. I will always love it. But Daniels hometown was the old-style, so engrained in the framework of the town and its people.
My hometown, Wantauh is one in the same. Long Island has the classic character of adapting but never transforming. My memories of Long Island are limited to the street i grew up on, my house and the front yard since I was so young. But I remember vividly catching fireflies in glass jars at that perfect time of day, when the sun is about an hour from fully setting, twilight! Suddenly magic lights appear as if friendly spirits are all around. It's a wondrous phenomenon. We were
playing in Daniels backyard of his childhood home the first day we arrived when I saw them agian for the first time since I was a 5 yr old Long Islander. I cried, admittedly I was a bit drunk but my tears were of happiness, remembering my brother and I catching fireflies in our front yard with the neighborhood kids, our parents watching over us happily. I, as a little girl amazed at the magic of the natural world. Childhood, what a beautiful time of life. The fireflies always bring me back there. I swear for as long as I live they always will.
This trip made my heart call out to me, the same message it always has, "this is your home". Meeting Daniels family & friends, so loving, so sincerely welcoming, so void of judgement, just big open arms made my heart grow. I always tell Daniel when I feel particularly open hearted or when he says or does something out love that 'he makes my heart grow.' It physically feels like it's expanding, like a lotus flower blooming. Meeting his family. Watching them take care of eachother and work as a joyful team for his cousin
matts wedding to the beautiful catlin was profoundly inspiring.
My mom, my brother jesse and I always took care of eachother, but it was just us and sometimes only 2 of us. We had a small but fierce team that carried me through life on an Unbreakable life raft. Watching dans family is like seeing a large ship wade through calm waters as well as turbulent. I know my mom always wanted a boat, but she was determined to survive with what she had and we did. In honor of my moms life I can think of nothing better than to live a happy fulfilled life full of true love. There is nothing she would have wanted more for me. I know it. Visiting my Aunt Cherie and Uncle Rick on Long Island, her childhood best-friend and the last person she spoke to before she passed, Im certain the universe is guiding me to a new/old begining in our future, kind of like our hometowns-, Wantauh and Cinnaminson, to the new/old school, to the place that always stays instinctually familiar despite the changes. NE my love I will be with you again, this i know.
My aunt cherie repeated many times when I was with her " you will have a good life" and I believe her. Daniel and I are about to embark an a wild adventure to the land down wonder. I can't even tell you how unprepared I feel logistically, but I have a deep calm within me. It's a gut feeling. I know when I have a gut feeling even if it's about something terrifying because there is a deep inner peace, a wisdom that speaks to me and tells me 'this is how it was written'. I feel this way about New Zealand, I should be worrying more for a million reasons, lack of money, lack of plans, debt, selling everything we own, etc.. But I'm not, New Zealand JUST IS. It is a head of me, very shortly i will be in that reality and I feel it will just work out. I am finally jumping off the cliff again and living blissfully in each passing moment of free falling freedom.
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