new york city

I just got back from New York City. Arriving to New York was an overwhelming and confusing feeling. Twenty months have passed since I left New York. I felt I was coming back home. Things were familiar. Taking out US dollars from Chase ATM took my breath away, good I still remembered my PIN. But then I have already forgotten how coins look and what size means what denomination [I am so lost with coins in the UK, I must have a kilo now in my purse as I pay with notes mostly].

Manhattan, every street brought back memories of my life here. Very few things have changed except for every second person has an iPhone now, and is never lost with maps, never goes hungry with yelp, but still does not pick up the phone.

But then again – I knew I didn't live there anymore. I have never been so homeless in my entire life. ‘Your country of residence’ question on all the official forms makes me wonder every time. I have 5 mailing addresses, none of which is my real home. I have two mutually exclusive feelings about this fact. I am tired and ready to settle, I want my own place where I could store my shit after 2 years of begging people to look after it. But then again I am inspired by the freedom of movement, by the richness of my life, by the things I have witnessed and people I have been blessed to encounter. If happiness is not the destination, but the way – I have had a rather awesome way.

So I am emptying my pockets of random SIM cards and a few leftover boarding passes. I give myself another months and I settle.

Holiday issue of the Economist had a great article about being foreign. It ends it with the following line: But we cannot expect to have it all ways. Life is full of choices, and to choose one thing is to forgo another. The dilemma of foreignness comes down to one of liberty versus fraternity—the pleasures of freedom versus the pleasures of belonging. The homebody chooses the pleasures of belonging. The foreigner chooses the pleasures of freedom, and the pains that go with them."