Little Room to Move (part 2)

I move into the Canal Street loft at midnight. Two of my roommates are still up. One is a French investment banker, who just happens to be in the middle of baking a banana and chocolate cake, and my other roomate is a gay French man that works for Air France. I say a quick hello and then I walk up the few stairs to my room.

My room is only three feet tall.

It's shocking to say, but even more shocking to actually be in there, or to lay in bed in there, or to get dressed in there, or to even think of bringing a man in there. I push my two suitcases through the little hobbit door as I crawl in behind them on my knees. I switch on the light. It is not a traditional light, but rather Christmas lights that line the top of the room. I unzip my luggage and begain to hang my clothes. I smack my hand on the fire sprinkler pipe that lines my room. "Fuck" I say to myself shaking my hand out in front of me. I stop packing, and I look around. I had tried not to think of the smallness of this room when I first signed the short term lease, but now it's smallness looms largly in front of me. "What did I get myself into" I say quietly to myself.

This time last year, I had a long term boyfriend, a beautiful cat, and a duplex with a green house next to the Blue Note in the West Village. Now, I have a large rent, a small room, and roommates...lots of roommates. Because, it's not just a communal living space- it's also a bed and breakfast. Before I give myself an anxiety attack I leave the room and go up to the roof.

You can see most of Chinatown and parts of Little Italy from the roof. There is a wooden deck, chairs, and after 7pm, a sense of calm, as most shops in Chinatown close at that time. I decide I should give this a chance, after all, I didn't want to move back to Brooklyn (I hated the commute), and I liked vibe of the French household. It was time to get back to taking care of just me again. I had been a caretaker for so long, for my brothers, then my mother, that a boyfriend. To be independent in New York City was frightening, lonely, and a challenge...but I wanted to be optimistic, at for tonight.

Nightfall Before Canal (part 1)

In twenty short minuets I've packed all the items I own into two suitcases.

I sit on the edge of my stripped bed and look down at them. They are not those large gorgeous soft leather suitcases where you can hear with satisfaction the zipper whipping past all of the large corners.

They are instead two cheap black canvas suitcases whose pulley devices have long since broke, whose wheels don't touch the ground evenly, and whose thread around the zippers are fraying.

To be able to pack all your belongs into two suitcases in your 30's would be liberating for some, but to me, it was depressing. "I have grown no roots" I thought to myself.

I stand up, grab my suitcases and a framed photo, and leave my rent controlled room on the Upper West Side. I don't say good-bye to my former roommate, who cowers in the living room, waiting for my exit. It's because of him (and his new boyfriend) that I am now forced to find a new living situation- again. I should have known the day his boyfriend Hank asked me "How large is this room again?" that my time there was limited.

I drag the two suitcases down the five flights of stairs, along with the framed picture of my mother and my grandfather tucked under my arm. I exit the building, it's night time, it's the end of winter, and it's not the ideal time to move, but then again, it's never an ideal time to move in New York. There are always flights of stairs to hurtle, furniture that has to be left outside because it doesn't fit into the new stairwell of your new place, and then there is the fact that most of your friends conveniently leave town the day you need their help for the move. Perhaps this is why I have paired down all my belongings. I don't need anyone to help me with my move anymore. I can drag these two suitcases all by my self and make it just fine to my destination with as little perspiration and frustration as possible.

I take a seat on the curb and wait for a car to arrive to take me to my new living situation. As I wait, I think about my frequent moving. It's grown tiresome.

I've lived in seven different cities in my life. On average I have moved at least once, if not three times within each of those cities. As I wait for the car I begin to think over all the cities I have lived in and try to make a laundry list of how many houses I have lived in in each of those cities:

Denver, CO- 1 house

Albuquerque, NM- 6 houses

Sarasota, FL -1 house

Tallahassee, FL-3 house (well, two of those were dorm rooms, still counts)

Atlanta, GA- 4 House

Gainesville, FL -2 houses

New York, NY- 4...now 5 houses.

Total moves: 22 places.

My car arrives and I head down to Canal Street.