It's time for me to write again. I've turned a corner. I live here; not only in the NYC I'm Home weepy-eyed nirvana, that I've been writing about on Facebook, but also in the Where Am I, What Am I Doing, Did I Make The Right Decision, I'm Alone way.
I live on a beautiful street. My side of the block is mostly brownstones, single family with a garden apartment like mine. Small apartment buildings and condos are on the other side. At the end of the street is Prospect Park, my refuge.
Retirees and young couples with kids live in the brownstones. A couple with a country home own this house. I live beneath them in my garden pied-a-terre and some days the class difference gets to me. I should be in the main house. But that is not who I am. I'm too unconventional, too unemployable, too queer.
These are the things that have happened since I've been here:
I moved my things in an open-air truck with a flea market/scrap metal couple who came to my tag sale in Northampton. The truck got stuck in traffic in a torrential downpour on I95 and everything I own was drenched, ruined or salvagable, but marked by water in some way. I had to throw out many books, photos, clothes. I've thought about this watery start. Why.
My neighbor across the street, John, came over and helped Theo and the movers. I asked him about four times who he was because I was catatonic from the disaster of my things. A few days later he invited me to dinner. I love his family. Jewish wife, glasses-wearing brainy Brooklyn kids, a family. The food was good and I belonged. He gave me the keys to his apartment building and told me to use the laundry facilities in the basement to dry all my clothes. This is what gives me my unwavering faith that humans are at their core, good.
Since I took over this apartment from a friend who bought a place with a June 8 closing, who would not put her things in storage, I had to live with my things crammed amongst her things for one week.
So really, I started living here 6 days ago.
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