the life I want

In an entry in March, I quoted Mavis Gallant: "Journalism was a life I liked, but not the one I wanted," recognizing that a reader might think that the obvious parallel for me would be "Teaching was a life I liked, but not the one I wanted." I wasn't sure that was true, was pretty sure it wasn't, but couldn't figure out why the quote rang so true somehow. Well, how about: "Brooklyn was a life I liked, but not the one I wanted."

Though I have been making my "what I'll miss, what I won't miss" lists, and "what I'll miss" is much longer (and more tangible: Ali's Roti Shop, the Strand, Cafe Gitan, the Whitney and Calder's Circus...). Plus I spent a lovely gray morning reading Patricia Reilly Giff's All the Way Home, about a little girl growing up in Brooklyn in the 40's, walking distance from Ebbets Field and Prospect Park. Just as with the Algers, having my own Brooklyn makes all the books about this town so much better. Any place is like that--but there are so many books about this one. So I will move, and haul my books with me (although I have been culling! six bags of clothes shoes and junk hauled to Goodwill, three bags of books ready to take to housing works next weekend when the C is running on the F line, a French typewriter set aside for Eleanor...does anyone want my huge collection of random old tattered magazines, of no collector value but of much collager value? be in touch. pick-up ONLY.)