The Perfect Space

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 My favorite part of where I live - of my apartment, neighborhood, of NYC in all its entirety - is my lovely, rickety, perfectly charming fire escape. 

Nothing beats drinking coffee and soaking up morning rays while looking out over the world below from my 3rd story perch (though, I pretend it's really one of these). I've passed many a mornings breathing in the view, observing all the nearby properties divided by shared fencing. 

The guys in the yard diagonally across from me have chickens and a dog; they get along surprisingly well. 
Two yards down, the garden is coming along very nicely. 
My neighbors have wonderful potted herbs and potted "herbs" [wink].
I love the chatter and drifting scent of pit fires, riding the twilight breeze up through my windows.
Someone is playing guitar. A few houses down, it's piano. Below me, the neighbors still got those "drum lessons" goin' on.  Yet, somehow, together it is a symphony.

our plants could be doing better...

Today, I signed the lease for a new apartment in what may as well be a Caribbean-populated Siberia - sort of near nothing, no man's land, not belonging to any of the surrounding neighborhoods - at the southeast corner of  Prospect Park. Not as much beauty surrounding me, but it is a splendid space in a pre-war building. On the first floor. Hence, [sigh] no fire escape. Still near the park and has its pockets o' pretty, but lacks the charm of my current quarters.
My heart aches a little, but it has been the last straw after my landlord has sprinkled some mysterious white stuff at the base of my front door (some voodoo curse of his, no doubt) after yet another um...disagreemment. Those stories are for another time. We just can't see eye to eye, so I have decided to leave. In haste. Because he is crazy.


*'Scuse the tiny pics. They were taken with my iPod and always convert into these thumbnail-sized images. They do my perch no justice.