Apartment 4

The landlord loves your application, he writes. Let me get you the paperwork.

For years I walked past the corner building, with the popular deli at the bottom, with the community garden and triple terraces, with just enough windows that you could look inside and fantasize about what it would be like to get what you always dreamed of. For years, I took a deep breath and whispered to myself, only to myself, one day. I wrote post-it notes in secret but spoke out loud about being pragmatic, about being reasonable. 

In my heart I haven't been reasonable for years, who are we kidding. 

When the apartment came on the market, I knew.
When the apartment remained on the market, I knew.
When everything was said and done I doubted a hundred doubts in my heart,
it didn't know how to be reasonable. 

I wrote the landlord a love letter, I am not ashamed to say it. Spoke of spring blooms in gardens built by those who came before. Spoke of meandering words that found their place in the nook of a city made of Alphabets. Spoke of twilight runs along rivers and how the soul of this town pulsates from the park around the corner. I spoke dreams into truths, and it's hard not fall in love with truths made of dreams. 

The crocuses are coming out of the earth now, the snowdrops and daffodils, this morning I biked across the Williamsburg Bridge like I was soaring into Manhattan on sunshine. 

Winter is dead. 

Life is everything that comes after.