Daring Greatly

Earlier this month, my Danish family booked a trip to New York to visit me. It was exactly a year ago that Pia and Sophie welcomed me into their home and, instantly, into their family. In turn, I had a fabulous New York experience planned out for their visit. I could not wait to pay it forward. What I would come to realize was that my own perspective of home had changed. The lens was very different.

Almost six months ago, I made the decision to sell my place and downsize. In fact, I had just accepted an offer and was about to go into contract. My tenant had moved out and, after nearly two years away from the city, I moved back into my apartment a week before my friends’ arrival.

My first night home was one of calm and reflection. I looked around the apartment to find my things virtually untouched from where I left them two years ago. I repositioned a few decorative pieces and moved some furniture to their original positions. It felt as though I never left and at the same time it was a brand new place. 

A few days into getting settled, I reconnected with a dear friend I made in Cape Town, Hannelie, back in January of 2018. She was the first influential figure I met ten days into the start of my journey abroad. I knew immediately that we would be lifelong friends. My heart was heavy as we spoke as she recently shared that she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. We spent over an hour on the phone discussing the usual – global politics and racial justice, reminiscing about my visit and laughing at the many ironies of life. An unrelenting activist and, in my eyes, the epitome of humanism, she was the first to remind me of who I am at the core…of who I have always have been. 

During that week with my friends, I rediscovered the core of my city. We learned about the history of immigrants in New York from the “Irish Outsiders” tour at the Tenement Museum, took a touristy boat ride around the Statue of Liberty, the icon of American freedom and saw the fabulous “CAMP” exhibit at the Met, a provocative representation of style that challenges social norms and stereotypes. We moaned over lobster rolls in Chelsea Market, ordered in late night thin crust pizza and devoured Korean BBQ in K-town. We even stumbled upon a protest in Madison Square Park against immigrant detention centers and voiced our solidarity. As we walked almost all of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, the diversity of culture, overtones of activism and the colorful personalities were center stage.

On our way to the Museum of the City of New York, we walked through Spanish Harlem, a working class neighborhood with higher rates of health inequity, crime, homelessness and joblessness as compared to the rest of NYC. I must have looked momentarily disoriented coming off the subway as an elderly man stopped to offer me unsolicited directions. I took note of his kindness. “People are so nice in New York!”, exclaimed Pia. I chuckled inside at the irony of her declaration in the context of where we were in that moment and where we are in society today. She was right. There are kind souls everywhere in New York and wealth does not define kindness. Since I’ve been home, I now intentionally take note of the many times I experience or witness an act of kindness. I learned that if you just open your eyes, you are bound to see what’s always been there.

In the midst of our exploring, I received an unexpected message from another travel friend, Karin, who I met in Israel while volunteering in the West Bank. Since we parted in April of last year, we periodically send each other life updates. She was back in her hometown of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The tone of her message was somber as she described the atmosphere as heavy and the people as angry and lost, lacking perspective on the future. “You change and the place changes too. So you don’t come back to anything. It’s more like a restart…”, Karin wrote. Democracy in Bolsonaro’s Brazil is perceived as unattainable in the foreseeable future.

At the same time, I’ve been following the peaceful protests in Hong Kong, in complete awe of the people’s resistance. When I was in Morocco, I befriended a woman named Janet from Hong Kong during a three-day trip through the Sahara desert. I later visited her in Hong Kong on my way home in December. She shared her views on the political history of the region and its contentious relationship with China. On the surface, the protests appear to target the controversial extradition bill, a set of amendments to the current law. The deeper view is that it’s a fight for democracy. Roughly 14% of the entire population have taken to the streets to fight for their future. That would be the equivalent of 46 million Americans engaging in protests. It’s remarkable. They are daring greatly. I sent Janet a message to express both my admiration of the movement and my concern for the safety of her and her family.

Forty-eight hours after being back in my apartment, I called my realtor to let her know I was not going forward with the sale. The events of the past two weeks reinforced my decision several times over. New York is my arena and there is too much work to be done.