Love to Brooklyn
Today was another gorgeous day in Brooklyn and I know I am home. I've mentioned this to so many people and have yet to find anyone who will agree with me. I think Brooklyn is the most beautiful place I've ever been. A lot of people love Brooklyn, but most people look at me cross eyed when I say that it is beautiful. To me, it is. It isn't just the stately brownstones or the tree lined streets soaked in honeysuckle. I don't really mind the occasional urine tinged spring breeze. It's not my favorite, but it is a small price to pay for the vastness, the industrial gloom living next to the oppulance of a bygone era. It's an inconvenience that is quickly dismissed when you look around at the sea of human experience floating (and occasionally screaming!) by your front stoop.
I come from the land of blonde faces and college sweatshirts worn out for a night on the town. Here the faces are old, young, brown, white, black, yellow and everything in between. You'll see the latest from American Apparel, saris, dashikis, couture, hand made and hand me down. Whether they know your name or not, they'll tell you what they think of you, or the transit strike, or what they ate for dinner last night. In the summer we all flock to ice cream parlors, coffee shops and movie theatres to cool ourselves. In the winter we dress like fucking Eskimos to walk to the end of the block and back. We talk to each other. It's a lot like those vacations you took with your parents as a kid. There was always another kid to meet at the hotel pool. Here, the whole town is the hotel pool.
There's art everywhere. There are potted plants hanging in front of blight and trash in front of mansions. Everything rubs elbows with everything else in Brooklyn and there is no place I would rather live. I love Brooklyn because I love humanity in all its beauty and stupidity. The best and the worst of your self can be found in the two block span between Dizzy's and the CTown. Here is where I wrestle with it and then feed it a white slice with a little fresh mozzerella and basil. Then some stranger will tell me something nice about myself, as if she knew me- as if she liked me.
Brooklyn has put a stamp on me and has sullied my flip flop clad feet worse than any trip through any cow pasture I've ever known. It doesn't matter, though, because when you are home you're home.
I come from the land of blonde faces and college sweatshirts worn out for a night on the town. Here the faces are old, young, brown, white, black, yellow and everything in between. You'll see the latest from American Apparel, saris, dashikis, couture, hand made and hand me down. Whether they know your name or not, they'll tell you what they think of you, or the transit strike, or what they ate for dinner last night. In the summer we all flock to ice cream parlors, coffee shops and movie theatres to cool ourselves. In the winter we dress like fucking Eskimos to walk to the end of the block and back. We talk to each other. It's a lot like those vacations you took with your parents as a kid. There was always another kid to meet at the hotel pool. Here, the whole town is the hotel pool.
There's art everywhere. There are potted plants hanging in front of blight and trash in front of mansions. Everything rubs elbows with everything else in Brooklyn and there is no place I would rather live. I love Brooklyn because I love humanity in all its beauty and stupidity. The best and the worst of your self can be found in the two block span between Dizzy's and the CTown. Here is where I wrestle with it and then feed it a white slice with a little fresh mozzerella and basil. Then some stranger will tell me something nice about myself, as if she knew me- as if she liked me.
Brooklyn has put a stamp on me and has sullied my flip flop clad feet worse than any trip through any cow pasture I've ever known. It doesn't matter, though, because when you are home you're home.
posted by Bree O'Connor at 11:57 PM
2 Comments:
Damn, now I want to visit Brooklyn.
As well you should.
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