Excerpt from Opening Chapter of "Reflections of Colette Street"

"I stare out the window of the airplane. The city, my city, is coming into focus. It's the city that cradled me from birth and swaddled me in its loving, smothering arms. That is up until eight years ago when I, like a prisoner who finally finds the door to the jail cell suddenly wide open, bolted almost literally in the middle of the night.
The last eight years have been spent in mostly glorious, self imposed exile and not coincidentally in pretty much the furthrest reaches of the world from this place that I used to call home. This city. This city is coming closer and closer to me through my little plexi-glass airplane window. It welcomes me with its glimmering orange-yellow lights and the streaming headlights of the cars below that move like ants on the interstate. I adjust my perspective, I can see my face reflected in the little window. When did I get so old?"