81   Wednesday, November 19   New York, NY

I think I may have found it. New York, that is. I think. It is 
not a tangible, and that was, is my problem. It's an attitude. 
Life is what you make of it. So, apparently, is New York. It 
came to me this afternoon as I was riding the Staten Island 
ferry for the millionth time (it's free, and is one of the few 
things that I truly enjoy doing here, more than anywhere else). 
I was leaning out over the railing, staring down at the water of 
the mouth of the Hudson River. At the Atlantic Ocean. And that 
is when the proverbial epiphany came. I realized that it was the 
Atlantic Ocean. That I had started at the Pacific, and finally 
arrived at the Atlantic. That after almost 3 months (and 
admittedly not in a straight line), I had crossed the continent. 
The idea of crossing had come so many times that it no longer 
meant anything. It was just a destination. I was wandering 
around, and incidentally I would reach the Atlantic Ocean when I 
was in New York.

   But at this moment, it hit me that I had arrived. Arrived. 
Destination. And many, many years ago, people had arrived from 
the other direction. To Ellis Island, and a new world, a new 
life. And New York. The key is in the "New."

   Like I said, New York is not a tangible. It's not what I was 
looking for. New York is not The Statue of Liberty at Sunset, or 
Central Park at dawn, poodles on Fifth Avenue or fog on the 
Brooklyn Bridge. It's not being given the finger by a cabbie, or 
standing at the top of the Empire State Building. New York is an 
attitude. The feeling of arrival. It's an old cliché that life 
is a journey. And if life is the journey, then the destination 
will always be New York.