July 3, 2011 - Breakfast

I was over helping a friend move out of his house in Kensington. Just light stuff. Sweeping the floor, unscrewing lamps from the walls. The movers were doing all the lifting. His marriage fell apart a couple years ago and now everything is coming to a close. He seems distracted but happy. I helped pull down his daughter's Twilight posters.

He cut me some mint from his back garden for my wife and gave me some nice folding chairs for our new deck. On the way out I saw the mezuzah. There's scripture inside of it, prepared by hand. At least I hope so. It's been there for decades. Painted over more than once. "My wife wasn't sure about it," said my friend, "but ultimately she left it." I tapped it; it's metal. Tapping things to figure out what they are makes me feel most like an ape on a riverbank. I took a picture with my phone.

Something about the picture. The way you can see the brushstrokes, the cracking paint, everything working around the mezuzah. The fact that someone put this there, with a very specific set of rules. You have to do it soon after you move in to a new home.

I went for a bike ride later to check out the hotel, to make sure it would be okay for my family to stay there. My head is full. I'm anxious. To get to the waterfront you go through an unbelievably huge set of upper-middle-class Jewish neighborhoods, then a smaller set of Chinese neighborhoods. Fur hats and strollers; flip-flops and cigarettes. Then some Latin neighborhoods, then the outskirts near the Gowanus Expressway that don't have an ethnic makeup, unless you count tired.

Walking through a park in Brooklyn (I walk my bike because I can't afford another summons) I felt like an outsider. I was suddenly scared I'd die here. There were old ladies ballroom-dancing together to Chinese music. I thought, if I fell over here what would happen? Would this be the last thing I see? But then at least it would be interesting.

I've switched from coffee to tea.