Hello!

I ran across some amazing photos by Holly Wilmeth today. This one, in particular, grabbed my attention:

“Albino Boa Constrictor”
Portland, Oregon. June 2013
“Snakes symbolize transformation; shedding of the old and embracing of the new.”

Aside from its absolute gorgeousness, and the fact that I have a large snake tattooed on my back (a catalyst for my previous life transformation), this picture grabbed me because I am once again shedding the old and embracing the new.  But also the old.

I'm returning to my New England roots.  

In just a few weeks, my wife, daughter and I will begin the process of moving from our New Jersey home to beautiful Western Massachusetts.  I never thought I would be in this place.  I was quite convinced that living near and working in NYC was somewhat permanent.  But little by little, I've fallen out of love: with the overpopulation, noise, smells, train delays, pollution, and pace of life. 

Each day as I walk from my office in Midtown Manhattan to the train that brings me home to Jersey, I can increasingly feel people around me pulsing with their sorrows, anxieties, manias.  The mannequins in big-name storefronts scream at me to keep up my appearance by spending all my money.  Buses, taxis, delivery trucks, oversized SUVs thunder past me as I weave my way through the crowd, intently focused on my Penn Station destination.  

No more!

I will miss the things that I'll miss.  Friends and co-workers and architecture and art and books and food and music.  The thrill of walking down a city street in the autumn or spring, lost in my own world of music.  The sublime process of being tattooed by one of the best.  Feeling understood by misfits.

Overwhelmingly, though, I feel calm and sure about forging a new path in a place with more nature and fewer people.  Being closer to my family.  Finding a new way through the old.

Goodbye, New Jersey!