If not my heart, definitely my liver

A year ago I wrote a post that I subsequently titled "A heart that no longer lives in New York". I was flying back for the first time after living here for five months, and my heart really just wasn't in it. As much as I wanted to see my friends, I was just coming into my own here in LA and wasn't quite ready to face the big bad city I had left behind.

Most, if not all, of my visits since then have been taken with the same dose of ambivalence. Great to be back, better to leave. But this last trip, this final marathon trip that I had been dreading for most of the summer, turned out to be really, really good. Or at least, it ended on a high note.

For one thing, the event that I had been dreading turned out great. I spent all day Thursday setting up, and didn't get home (er, back to my hotel room) until 11 PM. After not eating a meal all day, I ordered food and wine from room service and slept like a baby until nearly 9 AM the next morning. And what a glorious morning it was.

I woke up to the New York I had moved to eight years ago, warm-bordering-on-hot-days but with none of the humidity; when the sunlight seemed to simply dance off the metal skyscrapers rather than burn a hole through the sidewalks. To be honest, the day reminded me a lot of 9/11, how the sky was cloudless and blue, the temperature was perfect, and, for me, at least, promise just hung in the air as tangible as the acrid smoke that would later take its place. I was feeling good about work as well as the night ahead, when we'd celebrate my friend Cara's 30th birthday with a party filled with old school friends.

I didn't have to do much work until later that afternoon, so I went for a run mid-day through Central Park. I forgot how much I used to love doing that. When I lived on 86th Street, I ran through the park at least once a week in nice weather, sometimes quite often, making my own courses through the various loops and reservoir paths that were available. After I moved to midtown, I had a much farther walk just to get to the park, and then I'd be stuck ambling through the least palateable part - the lower loop, which was always filled with too many kids screaming, too many carriage horses crapping, and too many hills, period. By the time I had moved to Murray Hill, I think I just stopped going at all.

The rest of Friday was spent working at the spa, and finally, primping for the birthday party, which was a blast. I spent the night in the company of some of my closest friends, and then woke up on Saturday and did practically the same thing all over. Only, minus the work part. Another sunshine-and-promise-filled day, I sat in Central Park basking in both the sun and the aimless idleness only a day on vacation can inspire.

Again, when I lived on 86th Street, I hung out in the Park all the time. I'd go by myself or with friends, and would inevitably run into more friends - innocuous tanning sessions regularly turning into impromtu parties. I stopped frequenting the Park once I started the Jersey Shore houses, but truthfully, I started the Jersey Shore houses because the park stopped being fun. Friends started to have other plans, and conspicuous fun-loving couples seemed to take over the landscape as far as my embittered, nearsighted eyes could see. At some point, sitting in the park started to feel pathetic.

This weekend, though, I saw the park and the city itself through the optomistic, anything-can-happen eyes I had five years ago. Or maybe they were just rose-colored lenses. Either way, it's a much more pleaseant outlook.

While I was running on Friday, the song, appropriately enough, came onto my iPod. I let it play as I ran, and thought that maybe, for the first time in a number of years, at least a small part of it just might.