There's No Place Like click! (go the red slippers)

135-Minutes of Commute: Dia Especial - Shakira
Este es un día especial
Quiero creer en otra oportunidad
Dimos un salto mortal
Y hoy vuelvo a ver
Un faro en la oscuridad

It is Sunday morning. I wake up, sweaty and disoriented, in a dark room, hovering a good 7 feet above the floor.

Brooklyn.

Sigh   .     .       .

I clamber down from my double-loft, clutching A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, tip-toe through the chaotic remnants of moving that litter the (my) floor, and quietly speed down the hall toward the (my) backyard, suppressing bursts of glee as I pass the rooms of (my) probably-still-sleeping roommates. I plop onto a pen-marked grey plastic chair and throw my feet onto the shabby wooden bench with peeling red-paint (we moved it out from the hallway the day before in order to make way for brand-new shoe racks). The sun is bright yet it barely shines through the four trees; their canopy blankets the backyard. Courtesy of our next-door neighbors, a single tomato grows in a small garden patch just past the base of our steps. A woman sits on her 3rd-floor terrace in the building flanking ours, soaking up the cool-warmth of a September morning (all I can see at first is the bottom half of her legs, gleaming white, and I search intently for two full minutes before I can make out the rest of her body). A white stray cat strolls past the hammock and then passes from my view beneath me, beneath the deck. My book is forgotten in my limp hand as I take in these new events that are mine.

After 20 minutes of reading, exhaustion (a result of non-stop motion since the Thursday before) revisits me and I move to my futon, which Lee and I have managed to fit, snugly against the window, amongst all of the other furniture in their living room, and where I can lay down (using still less energy than before: no stomach muscles), in concentrated sunlight, to read and doze. Jenn invites me to brunch, and (inertia is no match for hunger) Lee, her Boy and I set off down 7th ave. We amble for blocks until we reach our destination: Rosewater restaurant. The establishment is cozy, filled with sunlight, and sports one red-brick wall. I enjoy a fabulous gazpacho, challah french toast swimming in peaches, pears, and plums (fyi: other fruits that do not follow the alliteration that I had going on include apples and small blue-black grapes that look like large blueberries and actually taste like Welch's Grape Juice, which heretofore I though was a fake taste), and a lemonade made with rosewater (stunningly tasty). Two hours later we sashay back to the apartment, roll on full stomachs, drink in the sun, connivingly steal a taste of Tasti-Delite, and all the while my mind belts out:

Wonderous, sunny, Brooklyn!

From morning 'til eve, but particularly during our walk, I feel this, hmmm, this electric vibe. How do I explain it? I can't. No, I'll try: diversity abounds at every step. (People's faces, hair, skin, bodies, clothes, languages, accents, cultures are all different from one another; restaurants scream at me in Chinese, Haitian, French, Trini, Italian, Mexican, American, Vegetarian; store-fronts boast ballet studios, tea-shops, hair-braiding salons, auto-repair, chocolate-delights only. Here is only but a sample of this vibe.) vibin'.

With each step I can feel that I am in New York City;
With each breath I know that, finally, I am home.