On Impetus

When we chose to move to New York City over four years ago, I had never been to New York City for more than a couple days. I just knew (in my bones!) that I had to live there in order to deem my life complete.



Have I chosen Seattle in a way of following Mary Schmich's address to the class of 1997 (later memorialized in the way that I remember: Baz Luhrmann's address to the class of 1999)? While Seattle is not North California, but the spirit is the same.

I think there's something there that I need to experience.

I remember the first lonely summer evening (my train was 5 hours late) taking a cab (which I later learned over-charged me for a $45 dollar cab ride to Astoria) marveling at the glowing lights of Manhattan from the Queensboro bridge. I was Carraway: "The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world."


And four years later I still see that mystery and beauty when a cab whisks me over the 59th street bridge. In and out of traffic, I always look to my right to see the city lights casting sidelong glares in the stiff mirror of the East River. Beautiful and mysterious, true. But I know that it's not all the beauty there is in the world.

So like I said, I think there's something that I need to experience. Seattle's calling.