Dorothy said there was no place like home and boy was she ever on to something. She did have a fever at the time. I have so many conflicting thoughts on coming back to New York. Since the jumble of emotion kind of throws off my normal instinct for clarity in exposition, I have to excuse myself right up front if this all is kind of tumbling out. But one thought which deserves being first is of course New York is beautiful, particularly at this time of year. There is that old twang in the guts of autumn, back to school, time of seasonal change. And of course, even flying in over the city, you see the old familiar buildings and it pulls your heart strings. Coming uptown alone at night in a cab and looking out the windows never loses its power to make you feel like you are in some historically significant time and place, as romantic as a montage opening Saturday Night Live or a Woody Allen movie. And even though all romantic thoughts are automatically foolish, it's hard to resist them, and even the lit up topiary of Tavern on the Green seem beautiful, when you are in the mood for it.

Then there is the old love affair analogue, beaten to death, that New York is like an old flame. But it is true, you always feel that same tug, of what you loved about it and remember what you hated about it. And in there are all the anxieties, the insecurities. It doesn't help when your friends happen to be featured in magazine articles, as it only reinforces the perception that all culture is happening in New York and radiates out to the rest of the world. Which is partly true. New York is the undisputed champion of the world and will always be. Then of course it rubs the raw nerves of success and what that means in New York, of the vague sense of an achievement in New York some how being more meaningful than pulling it off elsewhere. And in there is also the fact that the natural contempt you feel for everyone when you are outside New York, that they are slow, dull witted yokels who don't get it and never will--all that fades with time. I think it was Danke Shein that asked about Central Park in fall, and walking through there is always amazing, even though I did it every day for so many years. There is always something about it that never fails to amaze. And I say that even though walking through I came on a hysterical arab pretzel seller who had just been robbed, and I called 911 for him and talked to the cops, who, even though they are heros because the World Trade Center was attacked, were assholes who could not give a fuck about this guy even though he was in tears and his days earnings were wiped out. It was sad, but it felt sad like on a nature show when you are rooting for the sea turtle to not get eaten before it makes it from the beach to the water, and when it does get eaten, you accept it as the natural order of things.

Returning to New York, as I have only done once before after an extended absence of three months, and that was after living in France, you feel that thrill of the return of the familiar. A great rush, but also somehow an unhealthy one, like a junkie or alcoholic having a drink again. I don't know why it feels like a bad, indulgent thing to enjoy the place, but it just does. Then of course there is also the torment of identity issues, because when you define yourself as having been from a place as who you are and see you can just move, it feels transgressive, because the surety of who you are becomes plastic, which is threatening to how to define yourself as a person.

I mean, imagine this: all you have to is change your phone service, call a moving van and the person you thought you were is somehow altered in a significant way. And there is a trauma to the root structure that allows you to do it again, so somehow the cost of moving is that it becomes easier to move again. That process feels like a negative thing, although that impression might just be the fundamental threat to the fragile knowledge of who you are. Then, on a more personal note, there is the guilt of associated mortality issues of my parents, and of course it is sad to leave family and friends. Because while they don't need me exactly, even a child can observe that you are missing out on their lives, and even when you stay in touch, you come back and everything is subtly altered, people look different, kids are older, people have become other versions of who they were. And it's true, there is only one time around and you are either there or you aren't and being 3500 miles away is not the same as being with them, and just like standing on the banks of a river, change is the nature of reality so it is impossible to dip in twice and have it be the same.

And as time is passing there is also the inevitable change visible everywhere of a much more mundane variety. Familiar streets are altered, buildings go up, buildings come down, new, unrecognizable things shift and futuristic rice pudding places get built. It is sort of like a dream, and several corners I turned were disturbing to see, as new structures had sprung up as if overnight, some of them office buildings. All of which is significant, though meditation on the elusive appeal of New York brings up the even bigger issue, of the rest of where to live what is left of my life. And that is a tough question, to anticipate where it would be good to raise kids, to imagine a life for myself and then set about creating it. It's one thing to harbor some vague plan of return, but to get specific about precisely when and to where is quite another matter. Somehow seeing the ambitions of the FIT students and picturing the fact that these people represent a huge population, almost like immigrants, who come every year with grand ambitions from the hinterland to the city makes me feel that rush like the whole city is akin to running away to join the circus. Which makes me feel like I have to come back, to make it in New York, because anything else would be a punt and not count, because even rich guys in California aren't the same as the rich guys who made in New York because that Frank Sinatra song is oddly true, and success in New York is the gold standard, and everything else is just doggie paddling and striving.

Then there is also the flip side, that all the things about life out here, that everything is slow and people are nice and the weather is good, aren't the failings of here but the opposite, that New York is a world gone mad and here the pace of life is closer to sane. And by sane I don't mean giving 400 dollars a month to homeless people, which the city of San Francisco does. But sane as in it is a little more civilized.