Today is 12 years in New York City for me. I moved here with very little money, I was young, angry and thought the world owed me something. Earlier this week someone tried to rob me with a knife on the street in the dark, and in the blade of that knife I saw the faces of people I love and miss and long to see again. It was jarring and terrifying but also weirdly thrilling and now somehow I feel like I am nearly through the dense fog I have been living in for the last 6 months. I feel lucky, and I am thankful for all of the experiences both joyous and sad over these years that have helped shape who I am and allowed me to evolve into this current version of myself. I have deep gratitude and am proud that even on my worst days in this place, I live a life abundant with freedom, the Museum of Modern Art owns work I made, that I’ve known and experienced true love and that I still have a full head of hair and talent that allows for such discovery and exploration. New York has been a hard place to love over the last few years but it’s still the place for me more than any other where almost anything still feels kinda possible, life changing chance encounters are both likely and happen, and that the best things transpire when I’m just walking down the street alone with no place to be.