New York City

From an aerial point of view, the lights wink at you in random order. You know that some of them are winking in devilish delight of new arrivals, but you also know some are just trained to flash a twinkle your way for the sake of having done their job. In the final descent into the airport, the cold air that chills through the body of the plane seems to increase, lending truth to the fact that New York is pretty cold this time of year.

Driving through the streets to the place of rest for the next few days, the old streets and downtrodden houses might seem to be beckoning for a glorious return to their past at first sight, but if you listen carefully, they're just playing to what your eyes want to see. They enjoy their age and history, their times past and times yet to come. Many a stranger have come to the neighborhood shores to talk smack of the poor state of such a great city. They just don't know how to appreciate. Even so, the old are continually replaced with the newer, and the newer grow old.

Perhaps we also venture to new shores to rejuvenate ourselves, to rekindle the age that has crept up as we slept idly by the roadsides of our hometowns. Perhaps comfort isn't the greatness that it seems to be at first glance, luring us into security and stability, enfolding us in its arms of welcome and rapture. Wiggling out of its arms, a return to where the original arms enfolded one beg the question of whether the search for the novel and exciting is merely a further retreat to a comfort long past.