I am a dreamer and I always have been. I guess you could say the down side of that is I am never satisfied because I just never seem to be totally happy with where I am. From the first time my mom took me to New York I dreamed of living here. I could have moved here years ago but I think I was smart in leaving fate decide the when of the move. I’m not sure if I would have survived, both mentally and physically, if I had moved right out of college like Ash did. The girl just amazes me sometimes, the way she seems to own this city and thrives in it. I am not saying it is something I would want for myself, I’m perfectly content to sit in the window and take it all in. But it still impresses the hell out of me.
I knew this time of year would be a big test for me because it was always my favorite time of year in the mountains. I enjoyed the start of a new school year and with it the cool air, blaze of color, and the return of football. Hell I have already made two trips back and we aren’t even through September yet. But one thing I wasn’t at all prepared for was the hold the mountains still have on me, the overwhelming desire to stay. With my brother in his final semester, my job gone, and my friends moving away I just didn’t see this desire coming or think it would. So there must be something deeper than football that keeps pulling at me. It is an almost spiritual feeling, I think coming from the fact that I was happy there even in my darkest days. But that is just totally too deep to think about on a Monday morning.
So now I find myself living in New York but dreaming yet again. I dream of the mountains and see the first color splashed across the trees. But even more than that I now find myself dreaming of Paris. It isn’t a new dream at all, it’s had me sporadically working on my French for years, but it seems to occupy more and more of my thoughts. I have a strange wandering soul that always seems to be in search of something, some purpose in life, some reason. I suppose everybody has that to a certain degree. That desire to write a lasting novel, find a cure for cancer, or change the world for the better.
I can not remember a moment in my life when I didn’t want to be an artist and that was always enough. It was and is who I am and the last time I saw her I promised my mom I would never let go of that dream. But sometimes I dwell on the fact that I survived and if I survived there must be a reason for it. I don’t ever see myself painting my ‘A Starry Night’ running around the Village so now Paris has become my holy grail of sorts. And, as with everything in my maniacal life, I have no idea why.
One thing I do know is I don’t think I will leave it up to fate this time.
Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
