Homeward Bound

I leave Playa today. It has been a remarkable experience. The environment has opened up a creative vein, the people have stimulated, inspired, and nourished. As a writer, I have been more productive here these last two months than I have been in the last three years combined.

Spending two months in a place like Summer Lake makes me wonder: could I live in a place like this? Let’s put aside for a moment the fact that spending that amount of time at an artist residency is not living in a place. I have been living in a fantasy world where things like money, work, family obligations, health issues, and food shopping are shoved conveniently to the background.

Have you put that aside? Great. While you’re at it, let’s put aside the question entirely.

In NYC I don’t need to leave my building to have an impromptu dinner with my beloved niece; I can meet my friend S. in the middle of a Friday afternoon for coffee and insightful conversation; J. for Sunday Thai brunch and chuckles; M. for hearty early breakfasts and heart to hearts; bike across 57th Street to the Upper East Side to serenade lil’ E. and have takeaway with J.; bike over the Manhattan Bridge for an eggy lunch with W. and P.; head uptown for cheap ethnic eats and a catch up with the globetrotting A.; meet S. for Vietnamese food and share many laughs over sometimes painful subjects; teach my wonderful guitar students in my welcoming apartment; exploring Chinatown and other neighborhoods with my dearest El. These are some of the people in my life in NYC.

The New York Public Library, Lincoln Center in the summer, SummerStage in Central Park, Central Park, the Hudson River, the bike path along the Hudson River, Fairway, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Noguchi Museum, Sullivan Street Bakery … The things I cherish in NYC are too numerous to list.

And that, I think, answers the question.

So, it is with gratitude and a little sadness that I say goodbye to this place, to these new friends, and to the hawks. But it is with excitement that I look forward to saying hello again to my loved ones and to being home.

Here are some photos of Playa.