So it's T minus Three days, before I take flight again. For the Philippines.

It is hard to imagine, to comprehend not living in this city.

I've been rereading my blog entries from the period in time when I just moved here. And I quote:

"I wonder, when I am long gone from here- will I dream about New York, and realize it has seeped under my skin without me knowing it? Will I look back on Subway commutes fondly, or this city's mix of tolerance and diversity rubbing elbows with prejudice and ignorance? Even now it's taking shape I suppose- embedding itself into my psyche."

The walls in my room are bare, most of my possessions relegated into boxes, and there is still so much crap lying around. It is an archaeological dig to do this-- so many layers of my life have lain around dormant, patiently biding their time-- reminding me of dreams discarded unknowingly. My art boxes filled with paper, a binder filled with magazine clippings of fascinating people and images (mostly all living in New York), the most random things like bottle caps, panty hose and marbles that I had hoped to turn into jewelry one day.

I am listening to the soundtrack of The Motorcycle Diaries, and remembered when that was such a huge influence in my life. How what it meant to be a Revolutionary was hitting the open road and learning about the people you share this world with, and the places you inhabit. How academics and theory may play their part, but inevitably, the most revolutionary thing you can do, is to see and acknowledge these things.

I also remember that I was so unsure about my decision to move to New York. How it seemed to go against everything that I stood for as a person. And now to me, New York is a revelation, a revolution in itself. It is where all paths intersect, it is the embodiment of the strata of society, it is depraved, debauchery, and yet at the same time transcendent, and enlightened. It is where you can find holy men on street corners making music so pure it could make you weep. It is where you can glimpse your soulmate across the subway tracks, eyes meeting, knowing smiles. It is both police state, and anarchy. It can be cruel, but hilariously funny. It can be cold, so cold-- like those cold winter nights, where everything seems so sharp and unbearably clear, and it can be hot and sensuous like a dim, smoky pub on a friday night. It is serendipity, coincidence and chaos.

I have had many past lives. I have lived in so many places-- and in each I have been changed and marked by the place. I have dreamt desert dreams in Damascus, hiked under the full-moon amongst ruins of Syria's crumbled civilization. I have returned to my motherland, re-learned what it meant to love it's lush forests, and rice paddies. I have bided my time in Massachusetts with four-inch snow on the ground, fed my brain with the words of African writers, and feminists, and film theorists. And with each I have been a different person. Not necessarily shedding the girl I was, but layering, juxtaposing this and that. These memories like thread, winding together to become something more.

And this city, is another bright thread-- shimmering and long, reminding me that human experience is the most rich and textured when it ceases to fight its contradictions, it's myriad of complexities. And when I leave here it will be hard, but I carry this city within my heart.