On a temperate late August day, our Buick was packed tightly with all our conceived needs for the adventures which would await. I had recently delved into a passion I’m still earning the confidence to pursue: writing.

With a GoPro set up to time-lapse all to come on our great road trip which would lead us West, the lens pointed at the familiar horizon from Indian Wells Beach. The one in Amagansett that I’d stroll to as a kid before I got my license, where I’d always go, I’ve always gone and will go again. And from there, we drove westward. I saw more of the United States than I ever could have imagined. My paths always drifted East beyond the ocean, beyond Indian Wells. I hadn’t taken a minute to look in the opposite direction. And so, I finally did.

I’ve seen magnificence. There is true wild beauty in this country.

There is true wild beauty in this country
There is true kindness among the masses. There are congenial downtown watering holes serving up their own brews on Main Streets across America. There are long stretches, longer than you can imagine with boundless views of the raw landscape. Mountainside and valley roads edge along abrupt plummets, a consequence to any wrong turn. Eternal summer fades into early snowfall and back to desert again. It’s a vast, historic monument to Earth. Like our time-lapse video, in an instant, we’re back in a familiar place greeting January 1st. My memories are still so vivid and recent, yet somehow the past months went by in a blink.

At times I felt homesick, very homesick. There are also, of course, disenchanting towns. But then, a new place awaited with so much glory and surprise that the lame or forgettable was forgotten. With my return, also begs the question of what’s next? It’s at times daunting, scary, something worthy of procrastination while I am in the midst of so many discoveries. But what happens once I’m still if ever I am. For once, the answer is not so much clear, as it is ripe.

I shall write.

I have thought of every excuse for why I shouldn’t, convinced myself that no one reads, nor cares what I’ve written and thus rejected the blank page in angst. I’m discovering new career opportunities to pursue in line with some of the things I’ve become passionate about along the way, such as supporting the national parks, corporate social responsibility, selling goods from artisans I’ve discovered along the way in a bar-café-bookshop — and these careers may very well suit me in the future.

I want to share the world I’ve come to know, not only in my few months on the road, but my years abroad, and a child of New York, our own modern-day caput mundi.

2015 has been a year of immense change.

I will leave my twenties behind this winter. My name will change in the fall. I like to think of 2016 as the year of the present.

It’s time to live out and type up, the very dreams inside my head. I’m determined to reach out to publications where I may have previously felt unworthy. I’ve begun jotting down a book focused on my American travels.

May your new year be the things dreams are made of.