"I've always enjoyed getting a kick out of life, even when it's a kick in the teeth"

"Can I go home now?"

Apparently I've been saying that alot lately. Probably because for months, I didn't really have a home. I had a place I would lay my head down at night but it wasn't home. The stress and anxiety of finding a new place to call my own/ coupled with an individual who was hell bent on violating my mental space as much as possible made that impossible.

Recently my footsteps are traced in my new neighborhood. Observing the sights and smells of everything around me. And like a sponge thirsty for water, I soak it all in. The yelling and laughter at the local parade a few weeks ago. Funnel cake, zeppoles, powder sugar spilling off of plates and onto the sidewalk. Carts of balloons zigzagging through the crowds.

Chomper, straining at his lease to run up to greet me and sniff the bag of clean laundry before I carry it inside.

The indoor/outdoor market, cramped to the brim with boxes of vegetables and fruits. Two lines of people patiently waiting in opposite directions without a fuss, bags of potatoes passed over one's head and somehow those lines making room for folks to pass back and forth.

Mending takes time and I'm in no rush to get through it. A friend, born and bred in Brooklyn told me recently that New York has a twisted way of giving you a merit test every damn day, to prove your worth and whether you are meant to be here.

I got alot of bruising this year. But I see it as one more test that I passed. So I am enjoying the down time and breath a sigh of relief that the normal chaos and survival mode I am used to has returned.

And that I have a great home to come back to.