April 3rd, 2007, I will be taking off from Oakland, CA, making a brief layover in Baltimore, MD, and then landing back in Albany, NY.
It's funny, or perhaps not so funny, how life can bring you full circle, even when you don't really want to be going around in circles. After time enough to be conceived and born, I have come to the same conclusion that that I had already made many years ago, and wrote about in my book, Seeds And Weeds, that it doesn't matter where you live, it's what you make of the place you are in that makes the difference in life. There is a poem in my book called "Every Eden Has It's Apples", which I will post here to give you a better idea of where I am coming from and where I am going.
"Every Eden Has It's Apples"
Every morning when I wake up I want to leave this nowhere town
I figure somewhere else is better 'cos here I'm always down
Every time I taste paradise and think I'm finally in
The temptations I give in to drive me out again
Everyday I try to escape from this cold reality
I keep running from my bills and this poverty
Every night I look for someone, besides me, that I can blame
No matter where I go, it'll always be the same
I'll never change my fate no matter who I pretend to be
And the only alternative is if I was never me
Even if I shaved my face and went by a different name
No matter what my guise, I'll always be the same
I wrote that nearly 18 years ago, and here I am doing it all over again. It's not so much that I expect life to be any different in New York than in California, it's just that I feel like I fit in better in NY. I didn't realize how different things would be out here, but nearly everything is. I'll spare you the laundry list, but let's just say that lifestyles on the west coast are completely alien to me. And as much as I have grown to hate snow, the weather out here in the Bay area is not really all that much better. With all the rain in the winter and the fog in the summer, it's just not what I was expecting.
But there are numerous other reasons I have decided to go back, not the least of which is that the cost of living is so much higher here, and I don't see where the income is any better. I don't know how people are surviving on what they pay here, it's nearly impossible to do in NY and things are less expensive.
At least I have an apartment to move in to when I arrive and friends who I am hoping will be happy to see me again.
“The woman or man who is a poet, or fiction writer, or playwright, or all of these, is engaged constantly in a jazz ballet of vocabularies, passions, genders, histories, perspectives, death, love, and life. The music of revelation announces itself to
This is a book of free verse poetry that addresses the seven main tests in life and offers some sensible solutions to passing those tests with minimal discomfort.
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