Summer life

I could tell you of the roomhunt that has taken me all over the city, sixteen hours in the trains, to a sketchy basement and a place where Internet didn't work, to neighborhoods where even sadness was shuttered. I could tell you about almost finding a place close to a beach but then it didn't work out. I could tell you about the delays in things, about the heat in a fanless room and the windy days. Summers in this country are strange for me - one day you sweat your flesh off, the next the cold wind whips you till you are indoors. If you sat for longer, I'd share with you the loss I feel at having left Minneapolis. It has just started to feel like home. I miss the softness of my bed, its wheel rolling predictably, of the calming creaks of my ceiling fan.  The incense that was mine, all mine. The comfort of the cool, bare wooden floors, sighing ever so lightly under my weight. Resting my cheek against the window, raindrops splashing lightly in the moonlight. Of the walks I took on familiar routes.


Even getting lost was a choice I made, straying a street or two, and finding the most bewitching mansions. I miss the splash of campus greenery against the summer sun, just finding its way in the city. As always, I miss so much. Moving cities is heartbreak and loss and adventure and excitement bundled together into one gift. There is so much to discover, new friends to make, places to get lost in. It is a big city, it feels grittier and glamorous. There is the big-city pace; every time I forget to move on the escalator someone says go, go, go behind me. The red line, the orange line, the green line, the pink line, the brown line, so many trains. In open spaces. Be careful, the signs remind you. The tracks have live electricity. I am amazed at how people deboard: they only get up once the doors open at the station. Me, I stand clutching at the door, as if a second too late and it would be late to turn back at all. Such is life these days, strange life. I will move again from one stranger's house to another stranger's house and start a new life.