Fruit flies

After doing the last Christmas shopping I sat at Sofia’s tounwind; bags were already packed and there was nothing else to do but relaxbefore flying early the next morning. Leo, the bartender, gave me a glass oftheir best champagne and while chilling at the bar I simmered into a millionthoughts.  These last few days havebeen one of the few moments in which I’ve spent time with myself; a very much-neededsilence between trips and with just a handful of friends in New York.  It was when Leo refilled my glass that everythingwas clear to me: I’m a New Yorker; my life is here; not somewhere else. I’vebeen living for so long with a longing for the other place, for the ones I leftbehind without acknowledging what I have built for me here.   For a moment I thought about the fruitflies that appeared in our office a couple of months ago. They stand on our coffee mugs and annoyingly circulate infront of our monitors. “It feels that we’re working in Ecuador or India”,Lindsey would say trying to kill one. My theory is that we brought them from one of our trips and for a reasonthey are thriving in their new environment. What is needed to survive and grow?For the flies it seems that sugar and a cozy environment suffices. This is ofcourse considering that the metric is to survive and reproduce extensively andnot to be happy, fulfilled, loved, empowered, and so many other complexdefinitions of success.  New Yorkis challenging, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as lonely anywhere else and theconcept of anxiety took a new dimension. At the same time it has given theopportunity to try my strength, friends have become family and it has seldom beingboring.  To challenge oneself mightbe a good way of thriving.  Althoughsome of us feel in the paradox of wanting to anchor and keep sailing, there isnot necessarily a dichotomy as we might find people to sail with. Probably, aswith the fruit flies, the wind of inspiration or a tourist will take me to anew port.