williamsburg, and then what
There have been some great moments in this embryonic year, the most vivid of which was in the West Village, taking part in that New York ritual of Sunday brunch: tea, pain au chocolat, and the New York Times Book Review section. Curling up on my bed with Erin, watching an SVU marathon and reflecting on four years (and counting) worth of friendship. Exchanging a series of emails with Joel Stein, only to have my editor tell me to "quit writing love letters."
I always wanted to live in Brooklyn (capital of Jewish America, site of my immigrant family story). Manhattan Beach, however, was not the part of Brooklyn I wanted. I’ve lived five months with the fresh-off-the-boat Ukrainian immigrants, indulging in their cheap groceries, and now it’s time to go. I’m going to Williamsburg, where I always intended to live. It’s a four month sublet, and then I’ll be on my way again. Moving is my favorite hobby when traveling is too expensive. Each of the pieces of the neighborhoods of Brooklyn is a new city, and I stay awake that way. But Williamsburg is the one with traces of Greensboro, industrial becoming hip. Maybe I’ll go see Rainer Maria play on North Sixth Street.
Manhattan is a story weary of being told, an old woman who just wants to go to sleep. Brooklyn’s amorphous neighborhoods are poems waiting to happen. Brooklyn Heights. Cobble Hill. Park Slope. Carroll Gardens.