Basement Apartment

I took the long way to get to the other side of Astoria. I hopped off the R at Steinway, and I made started walking the avenues to get to Ditmars. The N train had been a shit show at 59th Street, and there was no way I wanted to wait on the platform with a tens and tens of other helpless souls trying to make it through the tunnel. However, it’s not like it made things any easier.

As I walked north, I realized it was the same path that I had walked when I first moved back to New York City after spending a lost year in Seattle. I was a little younger then, a little more foolish. I definitely had more energy to walk this distance, even if it would be scorching out. But it hurt to be reminded of all the storefronts I’d peek through when my life was lot more broke and brittle.

In my mind, walking these same streets would prove to me how far I had made it. I know that that’s not the truth. Life could be a yellow brick road, but I could open it up to new and better directions if I had not decided to keep walking down the same old streets. I scanned through my mind why I looked down on those poor souls wanting to squeeze into a car and make it to the destination they looked to, what about me that didn’t want to deal with the whole ordeal. I kept walking, knowing that I needed to walk with a less heavy bag on my commute.

It seemed that so much had changed, but had not changed. I feared the idea of leaving Astoria some time ago, because I didn’t like experiencing having to readjust to a new life. Contorted were these same buildings, shadows of fixtures that had been much brighter then. I kept my pace steady, and I realized the rain had colored them a different shade of gray.

It had been a couple of years since I had left Astoria. Even if I live closer to the East River, I still find that I have given myself adequate time to adjust to my new life. A piece of me still lives there, a ghost that I hadn’t let go. Nearing Astoria Boulevard, I began understanding that I had wished to right a wrong. I remembered being tired and restless hopping on the M60 toward LaGuardia.

Crossing the street, I looked forward to seeing the old apartment. However, this time was different. During the time when I lived in that basement, I was angry. I wanted to do anything I could do to escape the throes of squalor living, to escape the dark shadows of the place that I had been living at. As I approached the space, I slowed down. Inside, I wanted to run away. I walked toward it. I wondered who lived there now. I wondered if they had walked a long way to get there.