Skylines

For the past seven weeks, I wake up every morning to the most enchanting view out of my window.  For the summer, I am living in a two bedroom loft style apartment in the woods with my older brother.  The place is so quiet and serene, it would be so easy to lose all sense of time.

My room sits on the back side of the building and is quietly tucked away into the tree tops. The vast forest canopy provides enough of a screen from the morning sun that I don't need any drapes at all.  The mornings are lovely.  

The light creeps in ever so gently and I wake up to the sway of the tree branches; their arms extended to the sky in what appears to be a collective form of praise.  And I wonder, as I stretch out my arms too,  how much longer will I wake up to this sight?  I imagine where I will go from here, and the vastly different sights, sounds and smells that will pull me from sleep. 

When I lived in Hollywood over five years ago, I would often wake up to the neighbor's dog barking, the street sweepers loud trucks going up and down, and the various honks and beeps of nearly by traffic on Melrose avenue.  Neighbors would speak in Spanish and in broken English and I would try to understand the words. Metal bars over the windows created ominous shadows across the bedroom walls. But I loved it.

And then when I moved to Tennessee; the morning air was so thick with humidity it was like waking up sweaty and disoriented in a sleeping bag on a five year camping trip. It took almost a year to get used to the intense change in climate. The views from my window each morning would change ever so slightly as the seasons would too. Red Cardinals, Blue Jays and Mockingbirds were all friendly neighbors.  And every Saturday, the shrill of a tornado siren would sound far and wide for about one minute to test the emergency system regularly.    But I loved it there too. 

Now I live in a modernized tree house. 

In a few months I will embrace what is for me, the ultimate skyline: Manhattan.  I suppose I am a little nervous to embark upon such a drastically different change of scenery.  But it is no accident that I chose to come and hide out in the woods first.  New York is calling.  And with each day that passes, I hear her haunting voice echoing through the trees.  

Patience and persistence will get me there. 

It's not that I have some grand, well thought out master plan.  It's simply the next place for me to go.  Life is an adventure.  I want to answer the call while I am free and able to do so.  

It's difficult to articulate why this is an important component to my dream.  I sometimes don't fully understand it either.  But when you feel the pull of your dreams, you have to follow it.  And that is what I am doing.  I don't have any misguided beliefs about life in New York.  It's not like I think it will be easy or will suddenly change my actual current set of circumstances.  

I know that I am working and will continue to work very hard to get there, and even harder to stay there (if only for a short period of time).  

People work hard for all kinds of reasons.  I serve my dreams each and every day. To be able to live and experience and write about all sorts of skylines is one very delicious piece to my dream pie. One day, I hope that what I am doing for a living will be a dream slice too.  But until then, I will keep looking out these window frames, applauding with the clap of the leaves, rejoicing where I am today. 

So tell me... do you want a slice? Because I am pretty sure that everything delicious in life is better when shared. 

Today:

Key Lime Pie

2 oz Vanilla Vodka

1/2 oz Triple Sec

Splash of pineapple juice

Squeeze of lime

Shake and strain into a martini glass

Rim with crushed graham crackers