2011 was a year of wandering. And I’ve had wandering years before, but I don’t think I’ve ever spent such a short time period traipsing around to so many different places. So 2011 feels like a sort of patchwork to me—a crazy quilt of skies and horizons and cities and experiences.
This winter I’m wrapping myself in that quilt, and dreaming ahead to the patches I’ll get to piece together in 2012.
Happy New Year.
Last week I spent a few days in New York for a friend’s wedding.
I lost track long ago of just how many trips I’ve made, or how many months’ residence would equal the sum of all my days spent there (plenty).
My memories and souvenirs reflect this. I have whole sketchbooks devoted solely to Manhattan; boxes of still-good Metrocards and train schedules; miles of film negatives and a mental Rolodex stored to the brim with makeshift maps, habitual errand circuits and addresses of favorite haunts.
Every time I visit, it’s hard to string together a cohesive narrative of the adventure afterward.
Instead, my memories of New York are always a series of brief impressions; moments caught like fireflies in a jar.
Maybe it’s because each day finds me all over the map of the city;
or because I’d rather remember the best events and forget the worst (I’ve got a whole long list of those, too);
or maybe I owe it to the very nature of drawing and photography—whatever the reason, this trip was no different.
And every moment is another thread woven into a huge, neverending tapestry that tells the story of my very own, personal New York.
And for me, that’s the best thing about it.
