the beast who birthed me

I serendipitously found myself in front of Claude Monet‘s Water Lilies for the first time. As I took in the diffused sherbet clouds, fluid blues and greens, the sheer scale of the three large panels, a stranger asked to take my picture - a gesture that seemed uncharacteristically thoughtful and forward for a New Yorker.

Impressionist paintings explore how light can define a moment in time. After years away undoing the way my city raised me, I now come home lighter. There is no need to wait for sunset, the light I bring casts the city in the soft sherbet of the clouds. The more openhearted, friendly, and curious I am, the more the city and it’s often armored inhabitants open and soften to me.

New York can be hard, brusk, hurried, and harsh. Because of this, I thought the city did not love me. Instead, New York, the ferocious yet tender beast who birthed me, seems to have been waiting all this time for my love.

The most unexpected of all solutions. If you have a problem, especially one you can’t solve with resistance, pressure or protest, each moment is a new chance to try love. It unfailingly shifts the light.