There’s No Place Like Home.

Visiting New York City has somehow made it in to my annual expectations, and if too many months have passed and I haven’t been yet, I will invent a good reason to make it happen before the year is up. Last year it was a creative writing class, two years ago it was a work-related conference, the year before that it was a sisters’ getaway, and this year it was a concert I was unlikely to see anywhere closer to home.

I long to be there and feel a void if I can’t reconnect with it on a regular basis. Is that strange? Maybe. But if I could try to explain/understand it, I think I’ve felt that it satisfies what I am missing in my own City: energy, culture, weirdness, adventure, surprises—a sense of happening.

But then something actually did happen the other day. It was the Thursday before I left on my trip. I went downtown to take in some ArtPrize exhibits and found myself in a place that resembled a metropolis. There was heavy traffic on the streets, pedestrians crawling the sidewalks (and jaywalking, even!), and pop-up artwork in storefronts, parking lots, and grassy plots all over town. (A tiny fraction of this shown below...)

"Raising Awareness," a performance piece to educate the audience about metalsmithing.

"Allegory of the Cave," inspired by Plato's Republic.

"Disposable Game." Creative, interesting, and artfully-made. Really nice work. 

The eccentrics emerged. Starving musicians played. School kids danced in an impromptu choreography. My City became for that day and will continue to be for these next couple of weeks the City I need it to be. And if this keeps up, I won’t need to go looking for my heart’s desire any further than my own back yard. (Yeah, that’s a sentimental Wizard of Oz reference.)