the room, following the (non) move.

somehow a headboard seemed important before. a crown for the bed--a talisman of something grown-up, adulthood, if you will.

the bed is smooshed against the wall now. no headboard. up and off to the right hangs my framed casablanca poster, placed there because there was already a nail and so, why not? and somehow this somewhat careless arrangement works. seems just as it should.


i wasn't terribly careful arranging this space. i pushed my bed into the one corner, the bookshelf into the other, placed the dresser against the not-to-be-used-french-doors, and stuck my desk just where i knew it would go: between the windows. as for my reading chair? it swims in this space and i wouldn't have it any other way. i pull it this way for mornings and push it that way for late evenings and let it rest between bookshelf and door for much of the rest.

as i sit here typing this a mug sits on the ledge of the window next to my bound leather journal that tells the story of the end of high school into the much of my first year at college. i've been going through it of late. marveling at the pure drivel that is most of it and sending up multitudinous prayers that no one ever finds it. in reading it so much feels familiar, cyclical to life now. this is...humbling, to say the least. because i feel like a different person. am i not? am i the same as i ever was? eighteen all over again?

i don't think so. some thoughts and feelings are bound to reverberate for much of my life, but i feel like i've come out of some period of darkness transformed.

this transformation is its own struggle, or, well, challenge. i feel new. and different. and while at times exhilarating, this newness is also terrifying. here i am, twenty-five forced to reacquaint myself with the world and my surroundings as a changed person.

the thing is, in this new room, it all feels possible. is it possible for something to be more than you ever imagined? is it possible that i know this already? that the space is charged. holy, even. i swing the double doors open, i pull up all the blinds, i open the windows, i watch the river. i press my feet into the patterned wood floor. and this, all of this, makes the A train bearable. the neighbors are slowly learning my name and i am slowly making friends with their dogs. the coffee shop is still on the corner, an irish pub is opening across the street, and the trees are in bloom, pink against the palisades. slowly, i'm coming round to this life in new york. slowly i'm forgiving myself. for feeling like i've not done enough-- come far enough. slowly i'm learning the only person i have to reckon with is myself. slowly i'm persisting, making goals, learning to say yes. inch by inch there is life in this room, in this neighborhood, in the city, in myself.

yes, slowly there is life. and i am in love with it.

the next room.

washington heights apartment, circa 2009-10

i lived in the dorms my first two years at school. in a building connected to juilliard, right there in the heart of lincoln center. my first year space was a lofted bed over a desk with a roommate who studied the violin under itzhack perlman, haled from greece, and didn't believe in bull-shit. i adored her. second year brought a slightly larger room and with it a girl who believed she had been maria callas in a previous life...okay.

in my third year i moved off campus. to an apartment in a renovated brown stone on 104th. i'll never forget that space: the light wood floors, my bedroom's two windows on opposing walls, and the rumble of the subway and the deep call of nearby church bells.

oh the sense of space and promise of freedom that apartment afforded!

but third year was hard. and the apartment became home to a sadness that pressed in on my chest--threatened my very breath. so when another apartment--on the same floor, in the same building--opened up and it had a separate kitchen and a more conventional living room, i emptied my hopes into the space.

and we moved. next door.

and i willed that this would be a place in which life would improve.

i remember very little of that next-door apartment. remember very little of my fourth year, really.

after school ended i put my things in storage, visited home for several weeks, and then spent two months living on the top floor of my aunt and uncle's house in montclair. and i started the slow trudge back to  self.  i gave thanks each morning for the worn floors and slanted ceiling and sense of home.

and after just a few months i returned to the city, lived on 80th--the beating heart of the upper west--sandwiched between parks, surrounded by restaurants. and when spring came that year ushering in april's showers i escaped morning after morning to central park where, with not another soul in sight, i imagined myself on a roman holiday, traversing the gardens at the villa borghese.

and then before long, after realizing i had hardly a cent to my name, i moved north. to washington heights--where the rent was low and the A train was long. and i fell in love. and then out of love. and then in love again.

and so the pattern continued, tumbling on, but allowing me to make a home.

and i lived in one apartment now followed by another.

and another year is done. and i'm still here. sitting in my reading chair, window open, staring into the enclosed courtyard dreaming of the move that's just two days away: same apartment, different room.

and oh how i've lusted after that room for a year now! lusted after its two windows and french doors and view of the hudson. dreamt of placing my desk just so that i might wake in the morning, brew my coffee, sit at my workspace, breathe in the water, and set about writing the next great american novel.

you want to know what i've learned--what i've learned from all the different spaces in all the different years: life hardly ever turns out as you thought it might, hoped it would. but it does get better. and failure proves fertile ground for whatever follows.

i don't know what will unfold in this next space. perhaps nothing. perhaps everything.

but i do know this. i'm no longer emptying my hopes into a new space. not casting out a desperate attempt for change. i'm simply moving my things. just down the hall. and looking forward to the stories its walls will tell.

blue skies.

since returning to new york several weeks ago the sun has come out...twice. (maybe).

it's april 13 and my heater still roars (sputters) to life each morning.

i am. losing .my mind.

but today i officially signed a second lease for my current apartment making this little castle in the sky the longest place i've ever lived in new york city and removing me one step further from vagabond-em (fear not, i'm still pretty close).

so...

blue skies, no?

it should be noted that when we moved into our apartment a year ago i began calling the bathroom our etruscan tuscan wonderland. yes, yes, i know etruscan and tuscan pretty much mean the same thing. yes, yes i know that makes it repetitive. but i care not. with all the sand colored stone and strange, circular, tiled design  it deserves to be named. twice.

just the other day i found myself taking a shower with the window open and i thought, this is so nice. almost like i'm bathing al fresco. in italy. okay, well not in italy, but al fresco nonetheless. 


it took me a good five minutes to realize that the view i was so enjoying of the blue sky and other apartment windows was not without a cost.  if i could see others milling about through their windows well then they could see me. showering. naked. exposed.

needless to say i will not be showering with the window open again.

a night in sunnyside.

in an effort to prepare myself for the non move this week (we're {two of us} staying in the same apartment but playing musical chairs with rooms) i attempted to organize my room.

it now looks like either (a) i was robbed or (b) a bomb went off. i can't walk but for tripping over organizational containers. and suddenly my lenten resolution to keep a clean room is out the window and i am in a terrible mood. messy rooms, dirty sinks, and never-ending progression of grey skies will do that to a girl. but i digress.

last night i abandoned my messy room, my mile-high-pile of laundry and headed to sunnyside, queens. {for those who don't know new york city is comprised of five boroughs: manhattan, brooklyn, the bronx, queens, and (this is the strangest of them all) staten island. i live in manhattan. way, way up in manhattan. all the cool kids live in brooklyn. and a growing number of young people are moving to queens (where rent is cheep and space is abundant)}.

alisha (of doppelganger fame) and her boyfriend daniel hosted me for a lovely night of gourmet tomato soup and grilled cheese. 

as soon as i walked in the door i became that crazy person that can't even say hello before they marvel at the thing before them...the thing resembling an actual home. i opened every closet door, peered out every window, inspected every surface, sizing up square footage and inquiring about rent--this is what you do in new york when you've lived here long enough and reached a certain age. 

the night was perfect. good food. good discussion. a little baseball on the tele. and really good people.