“They are beautiful aren’t they?” A woman passing notices me gazing into the plumes of cherry blossoms, delicate clouds of pastel white set against a canvas of rainy sky.

“I didn’t realize they’d be blooming here!” It’s a silly thing to say, but I guess after living in Japan, I associate cherry blossoms with that country. Yet it’s not Japan; it’s New York, a new chapter of my life. The cherry blossoms aren’t just flowers to me. They’re memories. Friendship. Romance. Warm spring days. But now I’m here, where fresh memories are blooming.

I’m me, in a city, in awe. Awe is the reason I’ve gone, the reason I’ve stayed, the reason we’re here.

Not to get where we’re going; but to get the chance to go.

I stop to admire the budding flowers. I can’t not stop; the petals lay scattered across the ground. They dance in the still cold breeze.

The flowers transcend our baggage, our pain, our dreams; they come and go, without our knowing fall and die, the leaves turning green, making way for what is next. If they can make us stop and for a moment forget about life, then I think we have to imagine there’s a greater plan in store.

dancing sakura in the wind
singing on the high line
blue
in the gray expanse
music feeds my soul
takes me somewhere
new

into the evanescence of everything
where it all fades away
season to season
time gives way

If it were my last day on Earth, I’d admire the flowers and stay for a while. Nothing else would matter. I’d say the words I love you. Listen for them in the song of falling rain. I’d just want to feel the sky. Lick rain on my face. Have a good cry.

Maybe I’d stay up for a while, read a good book, have a laugh with a friend on the other side of the world. I’d walk as far as I could go for no other reason than wanting to know what the other side of the city looks like in the night. Maybe I’d try to find out what I could buy with a dime. I’d draw a stupid picture, smile for no reason, compliment a stranger.

These things seem so trivial; we can’t conceive of it being our last day on Earth.

Our last day to tour this planet of broken dreams. Where there are flowers and struggles, magic dripping from every seam.

How about you? Would you dress for the wrong season or hold on to the past? Would you let the present consume you, knowing it was never meant to last? Would you take the deepest breath of air you could manage? Fresh air. Again and again and hold it, other people’s breath in your lungs, cherishing the taste of pasta and cigarettes. Would you break out in song? A dance or a run? Would you make a stupid face and just have some fucking fun?

We live as if it’ll never be our last day, but how are we to know? Life isn’t a riddle; every day is a song.

it’s a gift to feel so deeply
i feel everything for everyone
what the hell do i do?
it’s like i’m being ripped down
the river of time
i can’t stop
i can only keep going
let it pour through me as i
pour through it
how’s your day going
goes a long way when you
feel alone in a big city
have a pint at a rowdy bar
smoke some weed in a crowded park
i need to be around people
who are all going through it too

I’m in New York’s Lower East Side, sitting on a rock on the sidewalk of the road. Before me two roads diverge, a building slicing through them. In the distance are mountains, shrouded in the misty sky. This world is bewildering — beyond it is just darkness. How are we not in awe of everything, all the time? I try to be.

The scene is a picture frame.

People continually walking through — that’s the fuckin’ art. The stories of these people. A second or two and they’re gone from our lives. We know nothing about each other; there’s a galaxy inside, just as there is in us, and it sails by as a starship with four limbs.

Walking around cheers me up. Lights and cozy places; people and their beautiful faces. A dude passes by playing with a yo-yo. A homie gives a stranger a slice of pizza ’cause he asked for it. There are good fuckin’ people in this world. It’s not so hard to be one of ’em. It’s the little things that keep the world spinning like that yo-yo. I love you beautiful fuckin’ weirdos. I love the strangeness, the obscene, the passion, the outlandish, the ones who don’t take themselves too seriously.

all these people surviving
the same anxieties and pressures and worries as me
there’s something else
a voice, fire, star, a dream
that makes the pain worth it
the spark in your eyes as you leave into the night
the smile on your face as your soul’s cast in light
love, people, shared melancholy
existence, persistence, a reason to wake
seldom is it clear
staring into the horizon
what we long for is
near
shooting for something we cannot see
standing by our side
a hand to hold
life is a question
the answer —
embrace the fucking mess

i’d rather watch a tree blowing in the wind than something on tv
i need people to get out of my head

i’m lost
we ain’t ever lost
i’m lost
we ain’t ever lost
what does it mean to
have your shit together?
when this game is as fickle as
new york city weather?
you try to move forward
road block in your way
what other kind of game are we
trying to play?
the challenge is the point —
slide left or slide right
what gives our life meaning
is our willingness to fight
stop grasping for control
throw yourself into the mire
and muck
dance with the cyclops
let it have its way
tell the story
of living one more
day

Are the flowers growing inside me? Do I carry them wherever I go, nature in my chest, petals in my soul, here and then gone before anybody really, truly, opens their eyes?

people’s faces toward sunshine
sitting on a bench
or the side of the road
you are the sunshine to me
lightness in the rain
color in the gray
the sunshine is in all of us
so why aren’t we facing each other?
why we gotta justify
the way we live
the song we sing
or the way we wanna make a change
does the sunlight justify
its warmth
does a tree justify its growth
why we gotta be scared to
live the way we live
love the way we love
give the way we give
tiny pieces of ourself
in the cereal bowl milk
it’s brown like cinnamon and
that tastes sweet
maybe a little sweet milk
some birds in the trees
love in our hearts
is all we really need

i feel the rush
i gotta make things happen now
there’s no train to catch
no wave to ride
trend to seize
you try to catch it
spend your life watching
time go by
one day I’ll figure out
what to do with my life
and by that time
it’ll have long been figured out
for me

just live it

i’m a kid trying to seize my
time on earth
the muse is the fire inside
the will to live
begging for air

Spring is springing on a cold and drizzly day. Cherry blossoms, plum flowers, color in the gray. Life is so absurd.

You could be doing anything, and if you’re the happiest person, how could anybody ever say you’re doing it wrong? That you’re a failure? You’re the happy one. What if you could take whatever you experience in life as just experience, neither positive nor negative? It’s simply another experience. Well, then you’ve won the game.

It doesn’t mean you have to fight to create a life that you enjoy. It means enjoy whatever happens to you — it’s all just experience. Laugh at it. This shit is all so ridiculous.

The flowers come and go so quickly, and while they’re here, they take our breath away. We come and go in the blink of an eye. Like the trees, the flowers, the moon, all we’re here to do is shine for a while.

Can I capture in words how beautiful the world is to me?

Standing beneath plumes of purple flowers in bloom, gently falling with the breeze. In the distance is downtown, Tribeca, castles, spires, soaring so high; there’s One World Trade, all glass and shimmering. I’m in Chinatown, low buildings, a church, brick, graffiti, kanji on the buildings, pastel colors.

People seem pretty happy. I’m just fuckin’ happy. Everything’s so beautiful to me. Groups of locals playing cards, Mahjong, or just talking. One guy speaking loudly in a language I can’t understand. Ten others just listening. He sounds mad, but I can tell by the smiles on the faces that it’s just a ruse. I smile as I pass. They all laugh. Friendship. Sunshine. Community.

By the Hudson River, I watch the waves lapping against the stones in the rain. It’s Easter. Everything is wonderful.

You’re here to enjoy your time on Earth. As much as it doesn’t seem like that’s the case sometimes, it’s the absolute truth. Every day is a mystery. You’re here to enjoy the rain, the walking, the people, most of all. You’re here to enjoy your solitude. Your challenges and your pain. You are here to experience life on Earth. That is something nobody could tell you is wrong.

Been walking in the rain all day. It stopped raining now. It’s so beautiful out here in Washington Square Park; the birds are singing, foreign languages all around. That means I’m in the right place.

This dude just came up to me and asked if he could talk about Jesus. I said sure, it is Easter. He said I look like a character from The Lost Boys, a movie about vampires. I said he looked like Blade, another vampire. He really did. He was swagged out. We laughed.

He asked if I believed that Jesus is God. I thought and said I think we’re all God. There is tremendous wisdom in all religions. He prayed for me; I asked him to pray that I could stay open and loving in the face of all this uncertainty. It’s the second time in a couple of months that a young person has talked to me about religion and prayed for me.

Last time I was at the U-Haul center in LA, days before leaving for New York. The checkout guy was reading the Canterbury Tales. I asked him about it. He was reading it in Middle English; we started talking about books. I told him about one of my favorite writers, Karl Ove Knausgaard, that I was finishing his latest book The School of Night. We talked about art and creativity, and he talked about Christianity and hope, and I told him about being a writer, and we agreed that we’re here to create — to create is to have hope.

He asked if he could walk with me to my car and talk about Jesus. I said sure, why not?

He spoke a bit and asked if he could lead me in a prayer. I told him I was moving to New York, and he wished me love, creativity, and protection in my travels. We stood there in the U-Haul center parking lot, him holding my hand as we did this prayer.

I had one copy of my latest book When the Sky Opens and the Answers Shimmer in my car. I signed it and went back inside and I gave it to him. He was super appreciative.

Now I’m here, almost two months later. Fuck, it goes quickly. It’s all fleeting: these moments and these worries, the good days and the bad; it all comes and goes in the blink of an eye. There’s nothing to do but marvel at the evanescence of everything, to drift in the wind like fallen leaves.