What does it mean to return? To arrive? I’ve returned to New York. Or have I arrived? It kept raining today, soft plopping rain, and then loud obnoxious streams of water falling hard on the pavement. I keep being surprised how things change-- new stores, gleaming on the street corners –sparkling, confident, and welcoming. I re-visit stores like Fresh out of nostalgia. I notice how the Banana Republic on 5^th Avenue off of Union Square looks a bit older this time because I guess it would be considered old now –having opened at least five years ago now. Maybe this is called culture shock, and yet, I can cocoon myself in Manhattan, in its familiar streets for a short while before being rudely jolted into realizing that every day people are streaming into this city with dreams bigger and more brilliant than I ever dared to imagine, even while I was here. You can see it in the courteous smiles of sales people, who strike up conversation with you over merchandise. What are they trying to be on their off time, when we’re not making superficial connections over how much we love Fresh’s soy face cleanser. Every day I’m closer to the day when I’ll have to leave again. And I’ll have to return to Beijing, or will I be arriving, again? When will I dream again like those who’ve finally arrived in New York? How do you reach behind the veneer to tap into the streams that flow beneath the concrete, the endless glitter of products, the gloss of couture?

Being away, I felt myself lose more of myself into this vacuous puddle of nothingness. I know it’s a matter of perspective, which is something I obviously lost along the way. Maybe now I’m trying to get it back. Reach my hands, then my arms deep into this opaque pool of substance to pull out shreds of the past and its lace-like memories—scattered remnants of dreams, half-forgotten. I have forgotten so much. I want to name something Soledad, traditionally a Spanish name, that refers to the virgin Mary, just to give this word corporeal substance. The name got stuck in my head today. Soledad, Spanish for solitude. There is such beauty in solitude, in the ephemeral oneness of one, the solitary, simple, solace of being in your own skin and knowing this moment is one complete moment. Soledad. Oneness encompasses more than singleness—it is complex, plural, multifaceted completion- a one with infinite layers of infinite depth. Soledad. I like the way it sounds, the way the sounds fall from my lips, the softness of the final ‘d’ in soledad, as if it landed on a pillow. In solitude I remember, reminisce, sort out conversations I still haven’t had.

I’ve had bhangra stuck in my head all day. I keep hearing the same flirtatious melody swirling through my memory and the earthiness of the bass grounding it, and I’m just letting the sound penetrate my skin. I haven’t danced like this in a long time. Haven’t danced with this much freedom, with this much joy. It was a kind of interior exercise in forgetting, letting go, following the bass, and somehow finding myself miraculously anticipating the next change in music. Basic rule of bhangra, we were told: when all else fails, just keep your shoulders moving. While watching, I realize, it’s more than just shoulders: that discreet smile curling around their lips reveals a perfect contentment, an intoxification with life. Watching them dance makes me happy. It’s startlingly, strangely simple. There’s a beat, a melody, voices singing, it’s projected into the room, and everyone’s dancing.

I want to feel words forming beneath my skin, hear words tumbling into the space, want to hear the sound of my voice tugging words into sentences into images into existence.

What have I been learning this year trudging to and fro from school to home and home to school? At a recent job interview, he asked me, ‘有用吗?’ –did anything I learned this year have any use? To which I replied, ‘有意思' purposefully evading his insinuating question to tell him and to affirm to myself –it had meaning.

Meaning—significance. How was it really significant other than being a strange, self-gratifying, exploratory experience: a foray into a covert world of dancers training to be dancers in China. At school, I stood in the back of the class and attempted to be inconspicuous, despite the fact that I was conspicuously the worst student in every class. My body told no lies; it lacked sufficient training and discipline. It was inflexible and simply older than every student in all my classes. The other students have learned to smile, to cajole the audience into adoring them. They have been honing their renditions of femininity for years and as I watched them with pangs of envy, I alternated between enjoyment and disillusionment. There were times I felt tears pricking my eyes when their movement and the music gelled into one cohesive, complete line; sometimes I felt like their plastic smiles and mascara enhanced lashes only accentuated the bored emptiness in their eyes. But I also have to remind myself they are young—eighteen or twenty. They have a long way to go—if they keep dancing. They might not; suddenly there are too many dance students and not enough dance jobs.

This year, I tried to learn to be Chinese. I tried to make my words sound native, attached ‘er’ and ‘ar’ to the ends of my sentences, accentuated my ‘ing’ and ‘shi’ to make them crisp, hard and assertive and felt defeated when all the cab drivers repeatedly asked me where I was from. Only once did a cab driver guess Taiwan or Hong Kong. I triumphantly assured him that my dad is from Taiwan and my mom is from Hong Kong, and neglected to mention that I am really from New York. Usually, they think I’m Korean.

It’s strange to be back in New York again. I am practically inhaling the streets into my bones, revisiting my favorite shops, eateries, and resuming my wandering through the streets only to discover a sudden explosion of pinkberry frozen yogurt shops, and a red mango shop in ostentatious competition stationed directly across the street. New York feels like home, feels like a worn but still glamorous sweater that fits the way it’s supposed to. It makes me feel like me. But there are odd moments when I feel like a complete stranger. The streets seem to shift beneath my feet when I can’t remember exactly where something is, when I have to let muscle memory take over. Things get a bit fuzzy around the edges. And I remember I’ve been gone.