B61

You learn the rhythm of the inter borough transit system. Don’t take buses in the afternoon, don’t turn them down at midnight. Don’t expect the express trains to run smooth, don’t forget there’s a river between you and the island and you do not decide when you can cross it. Appreciate the time of being in-between. She says she will not come visit you in Brooklyn, but you think that’s a process she’ll need to work through on her own. 

You begin to think about visiting California. 

He tells you to stay in his midtown apartment even while he’s away, make the transit easier, but he doesn’t understand that you are not suffering, that you are not enduring the railroad apartment with the mid century living room lounge, that find joy in the strange isolation of a neighborhood at the center of the universe. He doesn’t understand that you fought so hard to be here that even your demons gave up eventually, and they were built by the definition of perseverance. 

Doesn’t understand that you love New York the way spouses love each other 50 years into for better or for worse. I do not cherry pick my conveniences with you, New York, when I say I love you I mean I love 

You.