Brooklyn: In These Streets Like What

Nostrand Avenue peeps do not give a f@$k! I want to go home and I love being here at the same time.

Me in Georgetown, Brooklyn

Alone. Luxuriously, unapologetically alone. At last.

It’s a Saturday afternoon in Crown Heights Brooklyn. I took my coffee topped with whipped cream outside, into the backyard. I’ve been back and forth between New Jersey and Brooklyn, spending alternating weeks between the homes of two loved ones.

Today is a quiet day—a day where no one needs me. No conversations are necessary. Not with the nursing home medical staff or nursing home attendants for my mother in New Jersey. Not with the tenants in our Brooklyn house or with the lawyer. There are no phone calls to make or texts to send. Today I can just chill and be.

Would you believe I spent four entire hours in the backyard simply sitting still? Enjoying my solitude. Staring at trees and sky, watching birds flit, fly, and chase. Watching squirrels scamper across powerlines. I journaled and also made notes on a journaling app in my phone. But mostly I sat, stared skyward, and listened. Listened to bird songs and distant street noises: fading sounds of sirens and occasional car horns. Listened to the muted clattering of pots and dishes from a neighbor’s home. Listened to my own meandering thoughts.

While looking up, I watched sky traffic. An alarming number of airplanes far above my head flew by. The nearest airport, thirty-five minutes away by car. It’s official: airlines have no more need to add planes to their fleets. They have too many, I think. Seriously. It’s beginning to look fucking dangerous up there in the sky. And. Global warming is real. I feel it. New York is hotter in June than I remember it being in previous years.

Sipping and gazing upward, a question bubbles up: How do I feel in this moment?

Downtown Brooklyn (not the backyard)

A few weeks ago, while making last-minute plans to come here, I was loaded with anxiety. All nerves and overwhelm. Trapped in the unknown. Terrified of situations I couldn’t imagine seeing my way through.  Catastrophizing about everything that could go wrong. If I don’t go to Brooklyn—disaster. If I do go to Brooklyn and fail?—disaster. I bit the bullet: I came to Brooklyn.

Now, how do I feel?

Better, actually. So much better.

Not everything is figured out. But I did find some solutions. My presence here has been helpful. Two complicated problems have been resolved. There’s still work to do, unanswered questions up in the air. Still human beings to negotiate with.  

But for now, I’m feeling really good. In this moment of pause. Savoring these long stretches of peace and aloneness.

I wasn’t being dramatic. Shit was truly hitting the fan before I got here. There was, in fact, cause for concern. Because, well . . . . let’s just say human beings demand patience and creative engagement. We all take our turns at being The Problem someone else needs to solve. None of us are innocent. Most of us hate to admit it. But human beings are the most problematic fucking species on the planet.

As for this Brooklyn mission, I’m surprising myself by handling the hard things. Meeting the fuckery head-on, facing it all down. Sometimes I forget how badass I am, how smart and wise I can be. Remnants of old insecurity and low self-worth feelings linger like fart fumes. The ghost of my past self—hovering, watching, hand-wringing. But I’m not her anymore. I must remember: I am not the woman I used to be.

I’m badass. Deadass. Unfuckwithable. Beautiful and Brilliant. The more I say it, the more I believe it, the truer it becomes.

---

Randomosity . . . .

1. Brooklyn—New York, in general—has become increasingly known for its potential danger. Travel blogs and advisories often warn visitors to be careful. I can’t speak for all Brooklynites. Nor can I speak for all black people. But I will never be afraid of navigating through Brooklyn. I grew up here. These are my people. Even the scary looking ones who—may or may not—pose a threat. Death and danger are constant lurkers in life, surrounding us no matter where we go across this planet. So what? Life is a jungle. It’s our shared reality as human beings.

2. I love traveling on the buses and subways. Hell yeah! Buses and subways are my shit. First, because it’s cheaper than taxis and I’m a frugal bitch. Second, I enjoy people watching. Nothing satisfies my writerly heart and general nosiness curiosity more than watching people. In a place like Brooklyn, I get to see hundreds—sometimes even thousands!—of people a day when I ride public transportation.

   

3. I am thankful for the hard/traumatizing/horrific childhood conditions I grew up in. Having parents who were a little unhinged. I never thought I’d say that. Especially when I was in my early twenties, helpless in mental anguish and rage. But facts are facts: my childhood prepared me for the truth of life—for how hard it would get out here, for the inevitable cruelty of The World, for the unjustness. Oh how I used to envy the well-loved among us, how I used to wish I was raised in a “normal” family. Because I thought I was missing out on a better life with better people who might have been more loving and kept me safer. But then I wouldn’t be the person I am today. A girl who made it. I’m still alive. I like the person I’ve become. I cherish her. Sure, I’m still learning to be comfortable in my skin, still disentangling from years of self-loathing that seeped in via osmosis and propaganda. A work in progress, I’m still becoming. But overall, I’m grateful for all the hard bits. Because when thrilling moments happen and good days come, I lick and slurp at them like melted ice cream in summer heat. Surviving trauma made me more grateful.

4. There are specifics about this trip that I can’t write about (here). So I’m having to pick carefully around core developments the way one examines the detritus in a junk drawer. Searching for what to keep and what to discard. What gets written here and what gets withheld. The point is to keep showing up to the blank page, to keep writing.

5. On this trip, I am my best/truest self whenever I’m in Brooklyn, staying in the home of my childhood bestie (Cee). With Cee, I am—always!—free to be me. This forty-eight-year friendship has seen enough ups and downs to forge a practically unbreakable bond. On the other hand, when I am in New Jersey I stay with my sister. While we love each other with the basic connection made by bloodlines, our divergent lifestyles produce a formal politeness between us that often feels forced and awkward. I’m not my whole self when I’m in Jersey.

6. I miss my husband. I also miss sleeping in my own bed. It’s been almost three weeks since I left Mexico. There are still two more full weeks ahead before I can even think of making plans for my return home. My character is alchemizing here: I’m becoming a more evolved version of myself. I look forward to being the self who returns to Mexico and picks up with life where she left off, devoid of family crises (for however long it lasts until the next one). I look forward to meeting her, this new self I am becoming. A newer writing voice is emerging, I feel it. I’m excited about this.

7. Brooklyn—America, in general—has become ridiculously expensive. Fuck me! Everything is sooo overpriced. The same bag of potato chips that used to be twenty-five cents when we were kids is now two dollars and fifty cents. $2.50 for potato chips!?! Fuuucckk!! And! I paid seven dollars and eight-five cents for a two-pack of Dove bar soaps. Two bars of soap for $7.85! How are people expected to actually live? These prices are bullshit. Inflation is out of control!

8. There are too many planes in the sky. Sky traffic. Who’s regulating this capitalism shit show? While in the backyard I witnessed thirteen planes fly by overhead in thirty minutes. Thirteen!! In thirty minutes!! Our planet is so screwed.

---

It’s Sunday evening. I’m currently warming up leftover Chinese food for dinner—Singapore Mei Fun. There’s a large bag of almond M&M’s waiting for later. It will be dessert. This is a perk of being back in the States. I get to eat all my favorite foods, foods I can’t get in Mexico. While on this trip, I plan on stuffing myself shamelessly and returning to Mexico a little fatter.

It’s weird: I desperately want to return home to my real life in Mexico. And! I’m also enjoying being here in Brooklyn. With each trip back to the States I have felt stronger, wiser, and more confident. At age 58, I’ve lived long enough to no longer care what anyone thinks of me. It’s freeing. I feel like James motherfucking Bond. I get to swag and strut: a woman who knows more of who she is. An elevated sense of self-awareness that was sorely lacking in my younger adult days (not just in my 20’s and 30’s, but also lacking in my 40’s and early 50’s too!). When I walk through these Brooklyn streets nowadays, I do so in my own zone, on my own terms. I’m no longer desperate for acceptance or approval.

Remember how we were in our teens? Obsessing over wearing the right clothes, fixing our goofy desperate faces—with makeup or lipgloss or whatever—always coiffing and shit? I know some women harbor these worrisome behaviors for their entire lives. Not me. Not anymore. Strangers?! Why should we care how strangers assess us? Fuck them. In Brooklyn, walking along Nostrand Avenue, I’m surrounded by hoards of zero-fucks-to-give kinds of people. My people. I’m at home among them. They dress however, wear whatever they like. Yesterday I wore shorts with ashy legs. A few days before that I walked the streets braless under a Beyoncé merch t-shirt. While writing some of this essay, I sat perched on one of the stone squares pictured below, pink laptop balanced on thickening thighs, traffic zooming by all around me: speeding cars, bicycles zipping, people walking, people jogging. These days, everywhere I go, I boldly claim the space: This is my world. I belong here and here belongs to me.

It's hard to explain: my current life is real but it also feels made up, like a fantasy. It almost feels like a game, like pretending to be a grownup. It’s fascinating. I get to exist in Brooklyn with an improved self-persective. Enjoying whole new ways of being and showing up in this world.

Beautiful Reader, thanks for reading my words. My wish for you is that you remember to show up as your truer, more real self. This world needs us exactly as we are. I love you. Keep shining!

Love, Mia 💕