A home is what you make of it

Yesterday, at 8:30 in the morning, I looked at an apartment in Borough Park, Brooklyn.  I liked the neighborhood, the amount of space, the layout, the big kitchen.  I liked just about everything about it, especially the price, and the long commute doesn't really bother me because it means that I can come home to a quiet neighborhood.  So I made an executive decision then and there that I would take it.  Julia, the woman who is moving out and responsible for finding a new tenant for her room, said I seemed perfect, a great fit for the three other roommates.  However, she had one more person coming to look at the space today and she wanted to be fair and give them a chance.  I would be notified on Monday evening of the final decision.  So I thanked her and headed to church.  At coffee hour, which was about three hours later, I receive a text from her that if I could pay that evening, I could have the room.  I was so happy that I burst into a chant of "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in the middle of the fellowship hall, perhaps to the surprise of those around me.  My friend looked at me and said, "So I guess you got the apartment?"  Then we headed off to the beach for a proper send off of said friend, Maryah.
After the beach, which was all the way at the very top of the Bronx, I headed to the very bottom of Brooklyn to give Julia the check and get the keys.  Now it is official, and I am ready to start moving in tomorrow morning.
The following is a poem that I wrote in March, when I was living somewhere wholly unpleasant and looking for a new place to live.  I wanted to find a home that was more than a place to crash.  I wrote this poem as a meditation on what a home can be, what I should look for in a home.  I am publishing it here to remind myself to treat myself and my new home well.
                               _____________________

Walking through the concrete facade
of happy buyers buying and bristling off
on a street full of faces familiar and not,
without a plan in my head I meander
here and there until I can get my fix.
Something to hold me over,
to occupy my mind and hands
and force myself to believe that it's all real.
For a time I'm sedated, and the worries at bay
While I smile and play the part of happy customer
Eyes twinkling in anticipation and gratitude
A swipe of a card and a stroke of a pen.
Belly full and tongue sugar coated,
ashamed of my wasting, I step
out into the night, or maybe it's day,
and ask once again just where should I go?

If home were an option, I'd go there right now
I wouldn't waste time with these embarrassing games.
I'd enter my temple with serene jubilation
Massaging my soul with my passions and love.

_________________________________

Hopefully I like my roommates...

UPDATE!!!


The situation described in the above post turned out to be a scam.  Upon further reflection, some things about the situation were red flags.  For example, she said she did not have the contact information for the landlady or her son (who manages the property), she did not suggest that I meet the roommates, she told me to meet her at the apartment to exchange check for keys, but at the last minute, her "ride's tire broke" and we had to meet in a remote location.  Fortunately, I realized these things before she had tried to cash the checks, so I was able to cancel them.  Let the lesson be learned to take your time and really consider the merits of a situation.  Do not let them push you around, or scare you with competition.  If it is legit, you will not feel like you have been run through the mill, and there will not be a thousand things to "explain".  I consider myself quite lucky to have gone through this situation, and not to have lost my money in the lesson.  Remember to be careful!!!

The problem with boxes

There is chaos all around us at all times.  We see the elements of millions of lives scrape past us unpredictably as we go about our day.
To cope with this chaos, we tie up our time in tidy boxes of routines and habits.  We train ourselves to see the same sequence of events day after day, even as the landscape of faces on the subway changes in the passage of a moment.  Every day I take the same train, think variations of the same thoughts on the train and at work, and have the same lukewarm conversations with the same people... It goes on and on, to the point where I am fairly certain I can predict my day to a high degree of accuracy before I have even left my bed.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Imagine every single action you take in a day. If you had to think about each one and decide when to do it, you would be paralyzed by the sheer enormity of the task.  Our brains developed so we could be more efficient in our lives, producing more without expanding too much energy.
Yet there may be a danger lurking in these boxes.    The corners we cut, without any acknowledgement, could hold possibilities beyond the imagination.  Are we giving up something profound by accepting humdrum?  Are we numb to the possibilities that could be held in that one smile?  Making a change, even the tiniest, seemingly invisible change can be scary, without a doubt.  The choice to look up, make eye contact and smile at whoever you pass.  The decision to think a kind thought about someone you normally hold in the shadows.  Choosing gratitude when you would normally ask for more.
The boxes we use to organize the closets of our minds might need dusted.  It just may be worth the effort to go through and look inside at the content, and not only the labels.