These are the songs that we sing

This post was originally composed on paper by candlelight. I’m not normally so romantic but a summer storm knocked out the power and I had both a candle and paper handy. It’s an interesting change of pace but not as different from a keyboard as you might think. Maybe it’s just a quirk of mine but I’ve always composed (and edited, and crossed out) in my head hours before I commit it to the page. The big difference with a pen and paper is that I can’t go back and switch words and grammar as I am wont to do. Of course this, what I’m writing now, must be transposed for others to read it. And why not edit then, it’s not like you-the reader-could stop me. Or that you’d ever know.

Pride holds me back.

Aside from scribbling with sharpened quill my other activity of late is reminiscence. I suppose it’s a bit premature (My only recently booked flight won’t leave for three weeks, June 14^th if you like specifics.) but still hard to avoid. I’ll be driving along a peaceful throughway and think about how I’ll not control my means of transportation for years to come. Months may pass as I shuttle between cab, bus, train, and the underground before foot hits peddle again. Do I mind?

I’ll really miss the people though. A short 3 months ago I found a café (The Ambrosia Café on Maynard next to the parking structure and across from the Borders) I really like. And for just a few weeks now I’ve finally clawed my way to regular status (they might not know my name but they know I like room for cream). And in 3 weeks I toss it away, to begin the search anew in Brooklyn or around the east side. Not that I think it’s hard at all to find coffee in New York but will it be the right coffee? I can but hope.

Speaking of hope after the power went out brother, father and I piled into the minivan to the closest sports bar to watch the home team punish a series of interlopers intent on stealing our pride and trophies. It was a grand old time, especially when dad paid for our beers (like the Piston’s victory, his generosity was never really in doubt but one must go through the proper motions). One sore point and an increasingly common one as colleges empty and old strangers pile back into this the town of my childhood is that as I glanced around the packed bar I kept seeing people who I did and did not know. Names never entered into my ruminations as I stole glances at eerily familiar faces. All I really wondered was where I’d seen them before, and if I were also getting drunk at the time.

That there is the heart of what excites me about moving, and living in NYC. I’ll be removed almost wholly from the context of my development and adrift in a city to which I’ve only a genetic link to. I could remake my personality or modus operandi (Sister’s suggested I try for lady’s man. She’s very kind.) entirely, or simply act as I always do and observe if folks respond differently. So that’ll be kind of weird. But if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.

Still I realize as people everywhere are fond of telling me, that New York's a different kind of place. I'll need to be canny, and tough. Or something. Anyway I've already begun practicing protective falsehoods and deceptions.

I didn't really write this longhand. Not even a little bit.