“I give you this to take with you: Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” ― Judith Minty, Letters to My Daughters

Uprooting my life, trading the familiarity of the devil I had a close and personal relationship with for the devil who was a complete and utter stranger was a bit daunting to say the least, but when my life had reached the point where it felt as if it was slowly being dragged down into the quagmire of stagnation…  well, as The Brady Kids aptly sang, “When it’s time to change, then it’s time to change.”

Like most people, I spent my life acquiring the necessary knowledge and subset skills that helped me assimilate, adapt and maneuver through all the various and sundry obstacles and alterations sprinkled—sometimes hurled with vehemence—in my path and after a while I deluded myself into thinking I had become a dab hand at it. My arrogance allowed me to believe that I pretty much sussed out the true schematics of existence—at least as it applied to surviving in the city of which I was born and bred.

My arrogance was my folly. Over the past year and a half I slowly discovered none of it worked any longer. All the tips and trade secrets I had tucked away in my rucksack of tricks failed to net even the minutest result and all the rules I had mastered no longer applied. That was when I came to the sad realization that New York had fallen out of love with me. She even wrote me a Dear John letter that only took me eighteen months to read.

So here I am in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, a stranger in a strange land, not quite settled in and having to shake the memory of the former city that broke his heart, while getting used to the sight of the shifting colorful mountains in the backdrop of an unfamiliar skyline.

Raise a glass with me, won’t you, as we toast to new beginnings.

Cheers.

Sally forth and be Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na naingly writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys