first days

Dulcimer days. With a hefty dose of loneliness.

People warned me, before I moved here, of how isolating New York can be. Silly, I thought - there are so many people! Apparently that's the point: stacked one on top of the other, no one takes the time to ask if you mind their elbow in your rib, or if you might like to sing a song, just to pass the time. My space has been reduced to my 13x9 bedroom. It's very green in here. Which is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong, it's just not my colour. So the green file cabinets remind me that this, that all of this, is temporary, and that it isn't, too, that I am not going back to the room with the white curtains, the blue walls, the skylight above the bed.

I pull books off a shelf that isn't mine. Books about Buddha, long books I wish were longer. I circle around new ideas, projects to which I give small puffs of voice, air. I stare longingly at my phone. Ring, ring, please god, ring. There are so many new chairs to sit in! A container of orange juice costs $4.49. My Kashi cereal is $4.79. I walk everywhere. Last night I got veggie lo mein at 11pm and parked myself on the new floor of this new kitchen and forced a new roommate to talk to me. Oh, I am trying so hard. It rains and smells like something new, something just being born. And I miss everything.