New York. Again. One more time

I am feeling melancholy.

I am back in New York to finish things. (Although I wonder if one ever "finishes things" with New York City.)

I am back in town for ten days to pack/clean/socialize/experience and, well...finish. I have more or less officially moved to Chicago. My things are there. My work is there. My cat is there. So I must live there.

And New York? Well, New York is seemingly my past. But yesterday, today and for the next nine days, it is my present. And in it, I find myself nostalgic and torn, content and discontent, assaulted and embraced, inspired and annoyed. New York. It's everything.

A friend said, "New York never changes" And this has given me pause. It feels like it indeed did change. Or I did. I'm not sure which. New York still offers all it did: a dizzying array of everything. This is what I love about New York. Anything is possible: opening an improv school, creating your own work, traveling to the middle east as a playwright on commission, working as an actual paralegal, falling in love with a refugee, selling Iraqi art, dinner at 4am, summer in the Hamptons, unlimited mimosa brunch, discovering Time Warner cable is your mortal enemy, Times Square blackouts, Broadway auditions, ludicrously asking Ludicrous for water, sitting in the jury of "Law and Order", overshadowing Sarah Jessica Parker, pizza for a buck, cocktails for 22, an A train teen acrobat show for less (It's showtime!!), homeless man poetry readings, cheap mani/pedis, meeting soon to be friends from all over the world...literally. It's all here. It's all still here.

And yet, it feels different.

Maybe I need more space or more quiet or more family or more work or less options or less stimulation or less concrete or less isolation. I don't know yet. I could stay here forever. Easily. But I never wanted to. After ten years...is it time to leap into the next?

Seems I already have. I think I'm done.

They say "New York will always be here if you want to come back." But people really don't, do they? Or I won't. Probably. Sure, New York will always be here, but it's not the same. Once you leave, it's not the same; you're no longer in the club.

As a committed liver and lover of New York, you are part of a club. It's unwritten, but we all know we belong. We have all agreed to put up with the crowds and the crazy and the rats and the garbage and the noise and the urine and the tourists and the tight otherwise-impossible-to-live-in-spaces in exchange for...everything. And when you agree to leave that, you become merely an outsider looking in; no longer a member of the club --- just another observer slash admirer of New York --- from the outside.

But today, I am in the middle.  Not in or out. Still here, almost gone. But still a card carrying member.

I am standing on the precipice between old and new, past and future, New York and non-New York. I made the choice. Or New York did. I'm not sure which.

But it's over New York. Damn.

Don't get me wrong: Like any old, hard-to-get-over love--- I will always long for you, I will always dream of you. I will always...wonder.

But I will no longer live here. With you. Like this.

In other words...it's finished.

...with love and gratitude.

Running Into Your Past...

As many of you know, I have worked a great deal with Iraqi refugees --  trying to create awareness and change for these millions of displaced people. While in New York, I have done this through working with The List Project, selling paintings and writing various articles, a play, a book with Veterans Book Project and most recently, a memoir.

After touring the play for 2 years and finishing the book, I have taken a bit of a step back from advocating for Iraqis. I needed a breath, some space. I made a move across the country. I'm even doing a Christmas show for Pete's sake!

But one day, after climbing up the 3000 stairs of the elevated Chicago "El" train platform, I make fleeting eye contact with a man. I smile and turn away to look at the train map of Chicago (...still being new here and all) when suddenly I sense the man next to me.

"Excuse me," he says in broken English. I recognize the accent. Come on, really Chicago?

He shows me a piece of paper with directions written on it in English and sure enough, Arabic.

"Chicago?" he asks, pointing to his paper. Still not super fluent in the Chicago public transportation system, I look at the map with him, locating the Chicago stop in Chicago, both of us strangers in a foreign land.

"Yes, 11 stops from here" I offer at last, trying desperately to remember my numbers in Arabic before realizing I only learned 1-10 anyways.

"OK," he responds. "Sorry. I speak Arabic. No so English. I Iraqi." Of course you are. What else would you be? I smile.

"Asaalam al-aikum" I greet him, grateful to remember the phrase.

"Ahhhh!" He is clearly happy to partially recognize his own language. "You? Arabic?" he asks, confused.

"I only speak a little. Shway-shway," I answer.

"Ahh, shway-shway. Little! Yes! Very good!"

Once onboard the train, I try to explain that I advocate for Iraqi refugees, that I do plays and books to tell stories like his. Forget about it! Neither his English, nor my Arabic could help us through that attempted communication! He goes on to tell me that he and his wife and three children just settled in Chicago two months ago. They fled Iraq, spent a year in Lebanon until fleeing to Damascus for three years, waiting for resettlement.

"At end, Damascus very bad, no good, very bad," he adds with both hands gesturing no, as well. His face changes when he speaks of those years.

"But you are all safe?" I ask, needing to act out "safe" and let's be honest--- "you all". Why can I remember no other Arabic!?! What is the word for "you"!?

"Yes. Now. Ensh'Allah." There's one! Ensh'Allah, yes. Ensh'Allah: God-willing, they are now safe.

It's not easy, this transition to a new country, new city, new people, new culture, new language. It never is. Being a refugee has to be one of the hardest things there is --- especially one from Iraq, with all our prejudices and stereotypes in this country. I can see it on his face. But I also see the joy on his face meeting me...a possible friend, someone in some strange way familiar, or at least kind. I think it is no accident that I was to meet this man today. I think I needed it and I think he did too.

"Thank you," he says to me before he gets off at the 11th stop. "You very nice."

"Afwan," I respond. His eyebrows raise in recognition of my attempt at his language. "Yes! Afwan. You welcome. Very good!"

"Ma'asallama!" I shout out to him waving goodbye, now in full glory mode with my Arabic.

After I settled back in my seat, I smiled once again: my first Iraqi friend in Chicago; first of many, no doubt.