A Love Letter to New York

October always brings it back.

There’s something about the way the air feels that reminds me why I came here. It’s not just the temperature— it’s something internal. In my body, October feels like love. Like the first time you meet someone and you can’t get enough of them. That giddy, glowing, stomach-warm rush of something unknown but good. The beginning of possibility. And that’s what New York has always felt like to me.

I moved here in October, 14 years ago. I had just turned nineteen. I didn’t have much thought out, and I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I needed to be here. I landed under a modeling contract, got dropped into the middle of the city with no time to adjust. It was dozens of castings a day, trains, new people and things I had only seen in movies. Only nothing about this felt like a movie — it felt like real life. Fast, chaotic, honest. And for the first time, I felt like I was really living.

I moved into a model apartment in Williamsburg with 5 other kids all of us from different places in the world but the same dreams. 

Those early days were beautiful in a wild, unstructured way. I was alone, but not lonely. Just a kid navigating this huge city by instinct — taking it all in and trying to become someone. I remember walking through streets lit by neon lights, air heavy with autumn, trees burning with color I’d never seen growing up in California.

That shift from West Coast to East changed everything. It made me feel things more deeply. It made me believe in my own potential.

After only being in New York for a couple of weeks I quietly, almost without realizing it, started creating. Not just surviving — expressing. The way I walked, the way I dressed, the way I listened, learned & loved so easily then. The way I saw things not just for what they are but what they once were and what they will be.

New York was the first place that demanded honesty from me and gave me a language for it through art. It taught me how to translate emotion into form. To turn memory into something tangible.

Every piece of art I’ve ever made since has been shaped by this place — the rhythm of it, the sharpness, the shadows, the stillness between noise. My work was born here because I was born here, in a different way.

Over the years, I’ve built a life here. I’ve grown here. I’ve fallen in love — deeply — and I’ve lost people too. Some of the greatest loves of my life happened here.

Some of the best friendships I’ve ever had. And yes… I still think about the ones I’ve parted ways with. The ones I loved, the ones I hurt, the ones who slipped away without explanation. If I loved you, if I knew you, I carry you. No matter how it ended.

New York gave me the dreams I used to whisper to myself as a kid. Every single thing I hoped for — I lived it. I am living it. And still at 33 years of age, I’m learning how to dream again. Not from the pressure to prove anything, but because I know now that reinvention is always available to me. That I can keep becoming. That I can keep creating.

This city has never been easy, but it’s always been honest. It has stretched me, shaped me, and at times brought me to my knees. But it’s also where I found my strength. Where I built something from nothing. Where I found my voice — not just in words, but in form, material, and process.

Where I began making things that felt like truth.

This is my love letter to New York.

Thank you for being the place I grew up in — and the place I keep coming back to.

Thank you for giving me everything, even when I thought I had nothing.

You made me who I am —
as a person, as a maker, as an artist.

And I’ll always love you for it.