my neighborhood is breaking my heart

you stood beside me near the onions. at 5'2" to my 5'10" i felt like it was my duty to take the one at the top of the bin to your right and let you take from the ones in the front. you seemed so small in your navy blue,knee-length polyester skirt, taupe orthopedic stockings, tightly laced black shoes with just the slightest heel, bolstering you up just one more precious inch. that inch matters to you, just like inches matter to me, but you wish for more and i wish for less. it is because of the 8 inches i towered over you that i saw the top of your head, adorned with a silk scarf tied under your chin, just as my grandma mary wore hers. you reminded me of her, a tiny woman with slightly fogged spectacles and perfectly applied lipstick.

i watched as you inched into the market to count change from your clasped coin purse to pay for your root vegetables on this blustery may day. and i watched as a man, probably not much older than me brushed past you, rendering you invisible, and knocking your onion to the ground. i had chosen my apples and walked inside just in time to witness this man with ridiculous glasses, a hooded sweatshirt with a script-like print screened obnoxiously on every surface, and jeans that were much too tight go on his self-absorbed way with four bananas in a plastic bag.

maybe i was paying too much attention to the people in our neighborhood today. for you see, my greek, new york version of my grandma mary, i received some bittersweet news. we are trading in these beloved tree and flower-lined streets, with their immaculate family homes, front yard gardens, friendly faces, and decades of tradition for new and unchartered waters. we are trading it in for a space of our own, a sun-drenched, fourth floor walk-up apartment with 'brehm/sundberg' on the buzzer and the mailbox. we did not want to leave our peaceful astoria haven for the wilds of bushwick and the disaffection of the l train. but, gentrification gave us no choice.

for you see, my greek, new york version of my grandma mary, you are lucky that miklos purchased your house on 35th street after the war, so that you would always have a place to call home. but, we are being pushed out. probably by the same type of person who pushed you out of his way over a bag of bananas and somewhere to go that must have been very important. i walked the familiar path home with you in my thoughts and i wondered about what makes a home? is it people or places? because astoria has been such a good neighborhood home, but our physical home has left much to be desired with its bad plumbing, bad lighting, and constant interruptions. now that we are leaving, heading to a place with boarded up windows as our neighbors and an incessant basketball game at the plaza masquerading as a park outside of our windows, i feel a gnawing in my stomach as i think of leaving for something that is at once so much more, but at the same time so much less.

and i thought of you, my greek, new york grandma mary and how you must feel to have wrestled with being pushed out of so many spaces in your life, and so, i opened the door for you patiently as we left, and let you go on your own.