New York, New York

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel."

And so. Enter the American cast of characters in my life. Ohhhh the larks! (and professional things of course... exciting and burdensome both). This was my first visit to La Grande Pomme, if you will, where I did not feel swallowed by the height of the city; the vertical pressure of the buildings, the frantic desire to escape the all-consuming insignificance the pace and landscape generated within me. No. This time it was a different place indeed.

Visits. With real people. Real friends who have known you since childhood, who know your insides, your workings, your heart. Dinner at a festive Mexican restaurant with 8 people laughing and sharing, confirmed my belief in a possible life in this strange and sometimes overwhelming city. People. Real friends to share one's life with. I sometimes marvel at the incredible bond of a place like Interlochen, of a group of people so gifted and focused and unique; and of friendships formed in the midst of adolescent turmoil from the mild to the exceptional. People struggling with the burdens of "success," whatever it means, and those struggling with the perceived absence of it. And still in together regardless. Every one of them could be their own poem.