yesterday, I walked on Columbus Avenue
it was different
I think it’s very much the trees for me
I walked to the place that’ll be my home in a month and a half
September 14th I’ll be moving into Academic Guest House
on West 74th
so I went there
and went up the steps
and looked inside, through the glass door, through the gates, someone approached me
immediately embarrassed but not overwhelmingly so, because I do actually have a reason to be there,
wonderful, isn’t it? To have a reason that’s easily articulated for being somewhere,
(not like that shit shot at border control, that was top ten embarrassingly incompetent moments for me, feeling the English word slip back into my throat, down my stomach and out through the bottom as pure, incoherent shit)
so she opened the door, her eyes asking me why I’m being such a creep,
I said “is this academic guest house?”
she blinked and answered in Danish
such a sweet person, I thought, immediately, and not only friendly but-
she knew who I was
like, she remembered my name
she knew I was one of the artists
she told me how she was almost certain I’d be given one of the small apartments because some of the other students have to stay indoors a lot to write massive phd’s, and they figured I’d be out and about
Goddamn right you are
I’ll be out and about
I’m able to afford this because of this beautiful, over the top quiet and aircon’d mansion,
is what I thought,
she called it “Frederiksberg” and laughed,
(If you know you know but if you don’t I’ll just let you know it’s the opposite of Brønshøj and Brønshøj is seemingly Bushwick;
not the Privet Drive-part of Brønshøj,
the main street with the scammy bike shops where the number on the bike frame doesn’t match with the one on the receipt)
I laughed and completely agreed
the back of my head going theme song from Hannah Montana season 1 through 4
Everyone tells me the same
literally two different worlds
how did I get this lucky? I thought as I left her, many thanks and I’ll be seeing you’s later,
as I checked the prices on the menu of the closest pizzeria,
(kept on walking,
romantic daydream vanishing as quickly as it’d arrived)
as I bought a turquoise shower-scrubby-thing in what’s about to be my local supermarket a lifetime from now,
as I looked at the street signs and almost stopped walking, realizing Sesame Street is an actual road right there to the left,
as I looked right and saw the Lincoln Center, feeling hopeful that I might have a reason to go there in a few months other than as an audience,
I went along Columbus Avenue as a resident-to-be, touristy-ly taking photos of restaurants I’m gonna wanna visit, tall mirror-like buildings that let the clouds continue their way across the blue sky, slightly deformed by square surfaces,
eyebrows raised at yet another Trump building,
(how many does he need in this city??)
finding my way down the stairway and swiping the metro card that doesn’t work even though I bought it only hours previously,
sweatily descending more stairs,
finding a seat in the wooden, divided benches that won’t allow neither overweight nor homeless people,
trying not to cause a scene when fanning myself with the massive opening night-gift ages ago in South Carolina,
entering the cool metro,
opening the book I’ve been craving since I first read that she was writing a new one a year ago,
deciding to skip the two subway changes and walk the 15 minutes from Ralph instead,
exiting the train,
ascending the stairs,
assessing the geography of the place I thought would look more familiar to me,
finding my way towards the train track,
buying a gallon
(??? The second-largest plastic container)
of milk in a deli,
carrying everything;
book, milk, bag, fan, two different senses of home,
sweating while doing so
pressing the code to the door
climbing the stairs
reaching for the key I left under the mat in case I’d managed to get robbed during the day and lose the only other one,
finding refuge inside the airconditioned
home
of the last week of July
all of August
and the first two weeks of September
