The sky beyond my window, the buildings and the park across the road is the vermillion red of a fresh cold dawn, marking two weeks since moving to New York City.

I’m writing bundled up in bed—ah, to have a bed. I think back to my first night in the city, where this story begins. My plans to stay at a friend’s went awry after an eventful night out, and I found myself at 3 a.m. sleeping in a sort of makeshift marsupial’s nest of my clothing, huddled beside my suitcase on the wooden floor of my apartment.

It was only right to start my New York chapter in this fashion.

Who knows how long I’ll call this city home. A year? Five? A lifetime? I can’t say; all I know is that I love this city with sincere passion. It feels meant to be, sitting in my Chinatown apartment penning this story, the first tale of innumerable ones to come. Now that I’m cozy and caffeinated, I can reflect on that first fateful night with a smile.

I used my pants as my pillow, my jacket as a blanket, and, once the bitterness wore off—which it did rather quickly as I was grateful to at least have a roof—my laughter filled the vacant room. I made it! New York City, baby, in my own apartment!!

That’s how the journey began. And this is what’s happened—dusting over the finer and more salacious details—in the space from then to now.

The next day, Tuesday, is Chinese New Year. My best friend from LA comes to break the city in with me. How lucky am I that at what I thought was our last supper together—on Valentine’s Day, no less—he decides to send an impromptu trip out East?

I honestly don’t know how I’d have survived that first week without him.

We hauled my bed from FedEx in the rain. Hit the Chinatown YMCA to sauna with the locals. Tried the endless bounty of delicious food in my new neighborhood. And little by little, got my apartment into fighting shape.

After living in apartments in LA, San Diego, Osaka, Tokyo, and Oakland, some bigger and some pocket sized, this one is juuuuust right.

It suits me perfectly: the size—a junior one-bedroom, if you will; the vibe—lots of wood, in what feels like a Chinatown firehouse with a red metal interior and a sign above the front door that says NY Chinese Association INC. I guess I’m in the heart of it. New York. Where it all comes together: the energy I crave and found in Japan, but the community and feeling of belonging that comes from living in the States. I can talk to strangers again!!! And I’m not looking for the next place on my bucket list to live. Where else but NYC? I think I’m hunkering down for a while, folks.

I signed a lease on this place without having seen it in person. I know how difficult it is to get an apartment here, so I jumped on what felt like a solid deal. It’s beyond what I expected. I’ve seen the people in my building a few times, and it seems like an interconnected web. People move from this door to that, up this floor and down. I’m new to the scene, but hopefully will become a familiar friendly face.

I’ve always loved interior design. Pictures in magazines of beautiful spaces, how homes and places around the world have different energies because of their locale. Bringing different cultures together in my dojo fills me with profound satisfaction. I got a beautiful cherry wood whicker chair from a chair store near me on Bowery; a wooden desk on Facebook Marketplace, warm tones.

With this size of space, everything has a purpose. Each piece impacts the whole. It’s just big enough to spread out and use the area like a canvas. I love color. Color makes a place unique. Touches of neon green and red to spice up the warm, earthy tones of the wood and white walls.

This place has character. Be it a city or a home or a person, to me, character supersedes all else.

I live five flights up above a legendary Chinatown haunt. There’s a line down the block at most times of the day, the kind of place with sizzling charred birds hanging in the window. You can get chicken, duck or pork on a bed of rice with cabbage for six bucks, a heaping helping.

I’ve had it a few times, obviously. It’s cash only, and the young man who rings you up has this reticence about him. Last time in there he was working with an old man, and I wondered if they were father and son, or maybe it’s his grandpa.

I wondered what the kid was thinking as he sliced the pork and slapped down the rice with a thud. He’s been in there every day I’ve been there; it’s what he does, it’s what countless people do in this world. They do their thing day in and day out. They do it well, and maybe that’s all we truly need. It’s an art form, really. Maybe slicing pork is his version of writing. The food is so damn good. He’s making people happy.

The way I choose the things to fill my space is to not overthink—especially when you need, well, everything. If something sparks joy when I see it, I go for it. I love the things I’ve gotten for my apartment so far. We can’t take our things with us when it’s all said and done. But if our things make us happy while we’re here, then shit, why not fill our space with color and light and the essence of our soul? The environment in which I live and work imbues how I feel and what I’m able to create. My space must be clean and organized and full of character and delight. And so it is.

The week passes in sauna sweat and Guinness pints, and on Sunday comes the biggest blizzard to hit the city in ten years.

A week of debauchery is taking its toll on me. It’s overwhelming. I’m tired after a big Saturday night, the capstone event. Feeling blue. My buddy and I hunker down at our best friend’s place in Brooklyn and watch the Olympics women’s figure skating for about eight hours like some sort of fever dream. Go Alysa Liu, Oakland represent.

The snow builds and builds outside the window. Inside, I’m getting anxious. I live here? I can go home? What’s home? That big city over across the river? Chinatown? It doesn’t feel real.

It’s in this vulnerable and sensitive state I want somebody to hold. That’s okay. I’m out here facing my fears again. Scared. Excited. All of it. Every emotion on the gamut.

The next day everyone’s in ski gear. My buddy and I join in on a massive snowball fight at Washington Square Park. People wander the streets seeking coffee and bagels, anything that’s open. Shopkeepers clear paths with shovels, slushy street corners, snow angels and snowmen. No cars on the roads except emergency vehicles. The lights of Chinatown and Little Italy twinkle red, green, and white. Brick buildings clad in winter’s coat. Sprinkling salt on the roads. Cheery dogs with sweaters on. It’s a strange day.

Lying in bed. My friend’s gone home, and I remain out in the world, somewhere I hardly know. But I’m around people. That feels true to who I am. It’s Tuesday. I helped a stranger who slipped on ice. Held a door open for a woman struggling with her bags. Things are good, but life still hurts, man, not knowing what it all is supposed to mean. Last night my mind spiraled with negative thoughts like a snowstorm, and I was in the middle of a snow globe, all consumed.

The thoughts told me I’d never figure my shit out. That I’m not gonna make it. That this city is too much to handle. But I got out my journal and I wrote; I needed to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the page. Everything is fine. You’re gonna be okay. Over and over.

It’s the feeling of losing control that’s scary. I’m free-falling, grasping, fighting with the emptiness with nothing to hold. And I fall through the atmosphere back into life, the unforgiving world. I land in a bed, thankful for a bed, and I may hide there under the covers, but that never does much for me. Despite it all, I move. I write. I know things will all be alright in the morning. I know it, but still the feelings rip through me. You’ve made a mistake. But I reply, What else am I supposed to do? Somehow I eventually get to sleep.

The morning always comes; things always turn around. I step outside and head to the Chinatown YMCA for a workout. Ah, I feel like me again. One step away from chaos and back to order; music in my ears, a mindset as different as day and night. I’m gonna make it. I will find my flow.

I’m right where I need to be—walking that line between comfort and chaos. We keep movin’, evolution of the soul. But my essence follows wherever I go.

I bring what I’ve learned, collected and carry, not things but a mindset, a light. The things that I love come from how I see, so no matter where I am, I create my reality. It’s not the things I see—a sprawling cityscape and passing faces; dirty snow on the sidewalks, brick buildings shedding color and dust; it’s the lens through which I see the world, the city a moving picture full of potential, and so am I.

I tell myself, there’s nothing you have to do. Nothing you have to figure out. You’re here. All you have to do is be here. I come out of the Y and there’s the Empire State Building in the cold and clear sky. It calls to me. A muse. An emblem of the places I’ve traveled and the fire in my heart, the place that I now call home.

I compare this experience to living in Japan because that was my other true city experience. Japan felt otherworldly, and if it didn’t, it wouldn’t have had the same impact on me. There is so much that is uniquely enriching about Japan, like having an endless array of world-class Japanese restaurants to try at all times. But now, being in New York, I have the same thing but with variety. Any kind of food. People I can actually make small talk with. I can build a life here. That’s the difference.

I can relate to the culture, I suppose. But I’m living in Chinatown—best of both worlds! In a way, it feels like living in Asia again. Across the street from my place is a park where men smoke cigarettes and speak quickly in Mandarin or Cantonese or some other dialect; I’m not sure.

It brings me back to being out there in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand. It’s a vibe. Gritty and vibrant. Water drips from the awning on the sidewalk. Snow falls and melts, falls and melts again. The roads are slushy, but the plows continue plowing. Life goes on.

The tiny Chinese woman in the laundromat makes me smile when I drop off my laundry, no teeth but a radiant personality, full moon eyes, hearty voice. These places don’t stop. People persevere. A catastrophe or a blizzard or a death in the family. We keep moving through the pain, as painful as it can be. We keep moving. Life always goes on.

I stumble upon a Japanese manga and anime store in my neighborhood, and I go in. I peruse for a minute and end up with a Mew plush toy, a little decal for my place. I realize I can bring the same charm and playfulness to my life in New York that I had in Japan. Japan is a part of me. Seeing pieces of my childhood that I embraced in Japan, such as Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z, in my environment makes me happy.

I find a solid bagel spot and start with a a bacon, egg and cheese and a coffee to get my head right. Smiles at the register make light of the icy day. What’s your name? the woman asks. Vinny. That’s right, I always forget. It’s okay I’ve only been here once! I laugh. Feeling good today. The dust has settled. I’m back on my flow. Organized, writing, lifting, feeling solid.

Healthy lifestyle with some hedonism sprinkled in. I value health too much to give it away. But let’s face it, I’m here for the best social scene in the world.

All I gotta do is be here. Isn’t that all we gotta do in life? Yet we think we gotta do more, when we’re alive just to experience what it means to be alive. The joy and pain and sun and rain. What was I so fearful of? That I won’t find my purpose? That I’ll just drift in a new place? Who cares if I do?

I’m at Whole Foods, looking for hot sauce. Next to me is a store employee filling the shelves. I think to myself, he probably doesn’t wanna conversation. But I start one anyway: Yo, brotha, do you suggest any hot sauce? At first he’s shy about it. But then he starts to take it seriously, getting excited talking about chipotle and bourbon. It’s like a project for him, and he’s scanning the rows, analyzing the flavor profiles, on a mission. Finally he lands on one—a small bottle of mango habanero. He knows it’s the one. This is it, he says. Anything else I can do for you?

Naw man, you crushed it.

He walks away smiling and says, You made my day, I can’t wait to try it myself! And that makes my day. Have fun out there, he says. I hold up the bottle and reply, oh I will!

Now you hear about New Yorkers being hard asses. But I’m out here and I’m smiling at strangers. Maybe making a little difference in this world. And maybe that’s my purpose in this life. Just to make a difference on the smallest scale every day, by smiling at strangers and making small talk at Whole Foods.

Maybe in the end, I won’t cross the threshold I’ve been striving for—one I can’t even see. I’ll stay where I am, writing and moving and creating. But at least I came here to this earth, I tried, and I got to be here.

And maybe in the end the things we accomplished won’t matter. Rather what will define our lives are moments like this, making someone’s day by talking about hot sauce in a new city, where I knew nothing about him, he knew nothing about me, not that I was low recently, my best friend leaving.

Not that I have dreams I don’t know if I’ll reach. Not that I hurt inside just as much as anyone. We laughed in the aisle, life was fun there for that moment, and I carry that joy with me, and I hope he carries it with him. What more is there to achieve. I’m here. I write, I live. I fuck up and get back up. I feel it all. I made it.