KristyWes

End of an Exile

Know what? I forget to tell you something.

Remember how I used to live in Brooklyn?

I don't anymore.

Psychic shop around my new(ish) corner

After about 8 months of self-imposed exile across the East River, I decided to come on back to Manhattan. I just missed it, ya know?

So back in late April, I packed up all my belongings, said good-bye to the outer boroughs, and took up residence on the Upper West Side.

I know this neighborhood - it was home long before the USPS processed my address change request.

It was the first 'hood I explored the very first time I visited this town. And it was the 'hood I explored most frequently upon subsequent visits, when Carms lived here and I would bus down from Boston, crash at her JTS apartment, and the two of us would wander through Riverside Park coveting other people's dogs together.

I already have built-in memories of this neighborhood. There is the place where Bananas, MadDawg and I ate pie one Labor Day weekend. Across the street is where MZB and I had tea on that rainy, rainy cold, cold evening. Here is the store where I once overheard a vexed lady customer ask for a dreidel large enough that her kid couldn't swallow it. And this is the 'bucks where CJL and I spent Saturday mornings studying the 'brew two summers ago.

It's been nice - moving to a new neighborhood that already feels familiar.

Shortly after the move, Carms called and left me a voicemail.

"There's a phrase in Hebrew - 'Meshaneh Makom, Meshaneh Mazal' - change your place, change your luck," she said, "May it be true for you with this move."

Amen, sistah.