Brooklyn

Overflowing shelves of records where Dylan, Zeppelin, Louis Armstrong and the Beach Boys commune together in quiet. A player of records yearning for a spin. Sturdy and heavy antique furniture. A gathering of guitars hidden in closets, in alcoves, on high shelves, waiting for an impromptu sing-along. The Oxford English Dictionary. The Chicago Manual of Style. Endless cookbooks. Three French presses and a baby crib in the back room. Baby-proofed outlets a well-loved sowing machine. Cabinets full of seasonings and spices. The fullness that comes to a space that does not hold a television or microwave. The claw foot tub and a dingy window casting warm light into the open kitchen.

They took the brand new baby and toddling son north to Alaska for fishing season, leaving for the summer high ceilings and white woodwork on the ground floor of a Brooklyn Brownstone's neat railroad apartment.

Loitering in their temporarily abandoned home on a pre-rain Saturday morning in July, I imagine myself filling their closets with my dad's old velor sweaters that I love unconditionally but rarely wear and picture myself sitting cross-legged at the low wooden kitchen table. I write honest letters to friends of my youth while my tea smokes steam into the dusty ray of light that shines across my fingertips. With my blue-ink pen, I paint portraits of buying flowers for the party and collecting chipped coffee mugs. I sit up straighter in my grandfathers old wooden desk chair. I let my hair grow longer and pull it back in a low ponytail, which my girlfriend sweeps softly to the side to kiss my neck each evening when she comes through the front door.

Away from the Brownstone, standing on the steps of our new Dupont apartment on Swann, I can already imagine my dad's sweaters hanging in our tiny, shared closet and decide to buy flowers for the kitchen.