Apartimento

Limbo.

It is very strange to live somewhere that you know you will be leaving. You tend to not want to clean it. You feel “no future” toward the place. You simply want to let it go.

We have sold our coop in Queens. Though, the rate of movement of paperwork multiplied by the rate of decisive action in the borough of Queens is inversely proportional to the amplitude of my desire to get the hell out of here.

She’s a fine burgh. “The sports and transportation borough.” Real Estate is easy to grab here. It is in fact cheap. But with the cheap comes the problems of the cheap. Slow paperwork, as we now know. People with a different idea of what a café is. Computer illiterates. Slow energy, overall. And an overall utilitarianism that is at once appealingly naive and spiritually stifling. The best three things about this neighborhood of Jackson Heights are 1. Great apartment stock. 2. Great old trees everywhere. 3. Just a fifteen minute subway ride to midtown.

And those were great things.

But then, you just sort of get sick of having to zip into Manhattan every time you want a decent meal or to hear English being spoken or to go to a book store or movie theatre.

So, we wait for “the apartment to close” which could take a month or four. And we keep living. In limbo. It is unpleasant. I am trying to find a way to make it pleasant. Like that feeling when you do not have to feel too weighed down. Or the feeling that anything is possible and the future is exciting. Or the feeling that you are handing over your finely appointed space to someone else who will be getting a whole new lease on life---an act of generosity. Or something.

I admire people who do things, cross them off their list, and do not feel them too much. Or if they do feel them, it is only that little “pop of completion” that gives them a hit of happiness. I feel the births and deaths of things a little larger than the average bear. And the state of Limbo seems to stretch that all out.