I remember exactly how I felt the first time I came to New York City. I remember looking out the cab's window up at the tall buildings, giant billboards, and of course the gleaming lights. I came in the nighttime, and like I tell everyone "the first time you are coming to NYC make sure you book a night flight." Because believe it or not, it makes a big difference. I've talked to and gather information from many people and I have noticed those that came in the nighttime have this sort of magical memory of the first time they got here. Its all probably due to all the colors of lights flashing in your eyes that to a kid makes it look like some sort of mystical place, where everything will be for the best. It is the words "new possibilities" that sticks in your head. I arrived here when I was turning eight-years-old and I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. Yet every time I went back to my little Island of
Quisqueya La Bella I was at my happiest. I don't know if it was the tropical fresh warm air running through my hair, or the sweet scent of the mango trees on the front lawns, or all the pretty little colorful houses as I arrived, but it was home. The thrill I felt as my uncle's car turned the corner to enter our neighborhood was beyond description. My heart would start pounding to the rhythms of my island's drums. I was home.
Whatever happened to those feelings? They are now a distant memory. I actually feel more excitement when I come back to NYC. I feel I have betrayed my own beautiful little island. The harder I try to recreate those emotions every time I visit Quisqueya the less I feel them. I do feel a sense of serenity and tenderness, but not that thrill beyond description I felt when I was younger. Maybe its due to the fact I am no longer a child. But one of my friends says she still feels it and the only reason I don't is because my uncle has moved, and it is no longer the place where I grew up. She says I should visit one day the old neighborhood where I grew up and it'll probably all come back. The thing she doesn't understand is I was too young when I came to NYC unlike her. I still lived a great part of my childhood here in NYC and further on till my teens and now twenties. When I arrive to NYC after a long vacation, when I step into our cold air, I feel this is where I belong. When I arrive to my uptown neighborhood and step on the hard cement floor where I step to every morning for almost 20 years now, I just know this is now my home. I know every corner, every place, here is where I never get lost.
Quisqueya may have my soul, but my heart is now in NYC
