brooklyn
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in group the other day, we were doing this mindfulness practice — focusing on an object or scene, really letting yourself see it, the texture, the light, and edges. the quiet stuff your brain skips past most days. someone pointed out a single cloud moving past the window. we all looked. then a man, maybe…
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some places feel like they know how to hold loneliness — not fix it, just hold it. bliNK came from a walk I took through one of my go-to parks, late in the day, sky bruised with light. the park sits high on a hill, with quiet paths and a wide view of the New…
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I read this in a book I checked out of the library: out of all the stations on the New York City Subway, 275 are fully underground. that’s 59%. add a couple more percent and you get 61% riding beneath the surface. the rest — elevated, embanked, open-cut — see sky. but most of us…
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if this year were a book, it would be the kind without periods—just commas—where life kept running, often out of my hands. it’s been a tricky year, one that reminds you the worst might not be behind you, only to surprise you again. and yet, here I am, a year older since I started posting…
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once, on a bus, I felt I’d lived another life, another time. it made me think: if I were somewhere else, lived in a different era, I’d still want to be a musician. to be alive, awake, and tuned into everything, even the things that hurt. I don’t want to die; I just sometimes wish…
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the first thing I noticed this morning was how mom’s potted plants on our windowsill opened to the sun. then it was the way the light was touching the sky. and then how the street sweepers broke the silence with their heavy metal song. sometimes nothing makes a noise. abuelita says that in a silence…
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last week, while biking from Times Square to Dumbo Park, this couple from out of town stopped me for directions to the Empire State Building. I often get stopped for directions, probably because I look like I know where I’m going. plus I’m not afraid to make eye contact with strangers. you notice a lot…
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today Brooklyn is a beautiful, devastating autumn. it’s a beauty that comes and goes. on the street where I live there’s an old church that glows with the sound of October’s bells. I bike past it every day on my way to the donut shop where I work. (is it called the Doppler effect when…
cookie nieves 