(Originally published September 2013)

It is not enough to simply wander through a city and feel inspired by its lights, cafes or the dreams of others. Walking through a city is not experiencing it. It is a watered down taste of a place - a flavor, but a weak one. One must actually dive in, take time and space. Think to dream and act to live. Put ideas to pen an then to plan. But it takes the combination dreaming and living, penning and planning. To live is not merely to act, but to do so purposefully. To make the jump from tourist, to traveler.

(I think I wrote that- I found it in a journal recently. I like it.)

Living and Loving. Can someone love a place as they love a person? I have a wanderer's heart. And I am constantly breaking it as I move and travel from place to place. Sometimes I fall in love at first sight, forever holding nostalgia in my heart for a moment in time when I was there. With other places its a deep love, one that builds slowly and the type of love that doesn't easily disappear, but lingers. As a first love does, these cities and places forever hold a piece of me. A piece barried in their streets, the cobblestones, the memories, the parks, the quiet lanes and cemetaries.

Certainly there is more to this love than geographical location, the love stems from experiences, meeting strangers who turn into friends, and the memories made - these places are so much more than a landmark, tourist attraction or an item to check off the bucket list.

As a traveler, cities turn into a lovers, ones that - you hope - will love you back the more you give and live. But as with relationships, the more you give the harder it is to leave. To separate feels like a dagger to the heart, or as if you have been punched repeatedly in the stomach... aren't these the same feelings of love? The same feelings humans, despite previous experiencce, subject themselves to everyday? Everyday in pursuit of love?

But as happens when people move apart or are taken in separate directions - even if for the better - it is the same with places. Leaveing a place, even if headed to bigger an better things, headed for a personal change or challenge which will grow you as a person, is as hard as breaking a relationship or cutting a tie. Especially, when nothing is wrong, it is simply that fact that 'forever' was not a reality; change must happen.

Change, can be good. It grows you, you learn, you become a stronger person. But change is not easy. It hursts. It rips the roots from under you and to be replanted anew.

I feel this way for London. I said goodbye to the city on my last visit. Not a forever goodbye, I will certainly be back, but our relationship, my relationship to the city, will never quite be the same. The people will change, the experiences will become nostalgia and I will soon be a tourist in a city which was once my own.

I said goodbye, and, for the first time, was able to say out loud what I have been harboring in my heart since March - I'm not sure that I will be back. To be honest, I'm not sure I will stay in New York either, but it is what is for now.

And, as I'm about as good at seeing into the future as I am at arts and crafts or math, this could all be a load of crap. But, for the first time, I shed a tear for London. A tear of goodbye. And that I was not expecting (for those new to this blog, crying is not my thing). The people walking by me as I stood on the Embankment blubbering to myself probably thought I had just been dumped (and they were nearly right - except that it was a city bringing me to tears and not a man). My heart was breaking as I allowed myself to 'break up' with the city I loved, and still love very dearly. I said goodbye knowing I would no longer be able to call it my own, no longer know its secrets, its side streets, it'a restaurants or quiet places. The best parks, pubs or spot to meet friends.

But this break up was necessary. Before I left I was abusing London, I had begun to ignore her, not appreciate her. And, unlike relationships, when, as a person, you grow stagnate with a place it is time for change. Because the truth is a place, a city, cannot love you back. You only get what you put in. A place changes with the tides of the people who ebb and flow on its streets, coming and going as they go through different eras of their life. And to build a relationship, a dependency, on a place is a dangerous thing.

When the only reason I am staying is because I don't want to become the person who 'lived there once', perhaps it is time to leave. I wanted her name (the exoticism to live in London) and not her. Perhaps after a break, after being away I will go running back. Because the truth is that the love is not gone. One week in London and it all comes back. I get into the habit again. But the habit is what I want to break, so it is back to NewYork I head. With an odd mix of excitement and sadness in my heart.

And when the jungle of the streets and buildings of New York - the ones that grow on top of and over each other, as if shooting up from the ground - when this begins to feel like home, as it is starting to now, I know I truly do have a wanderers heart - perhaps I could call anyplace home. And when you can handle New York at her worst - traffic, crowds, long hours and extreme weather - and still harbor a bit of love, then you deserver New York at her best. You deserve the moments when, through your ridiculously close windows, you see your neighbor - a grown man - playing (practicing?) with a glow in the dark light saber. And all of a sudden a smile flashes across your face. You enjoy the moment while simultaneously taking solace in the knowledge that you are not the only fool or weirdo or person with secret hobbies and ridiculousness that you don't want the world to see. But, then again, you've moved to New York. This city will expose you. Its a city that truly does "turn you inside out".