Thursday, November 26, 2009

Harvest Day

To me harvest days will always be Mondays and Thursdays, torrential rains or excessive heat, six a.m. and the sun just showing up over the fields. It will always remind me of wide brimmed hats and bare feet in the mud and bin after bin full of cucumbers and carrots and kale. Back in New York, I never got to see the pumpkins or the potatoes that we planted in early summer. I fill in the gaps with the farmers market and the fig tree I am desperately trying to keep alive in my apartment, and I thrive in the city knowing that the farm still holds a special place inside me.

This year, the word harvest has new meaning; baking a pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin (even though it took four hours and my family hates pumpkin pie), a new appreciation for things that grow. But mostly this year I’m thinking not of what I’ve grown but of how I’ve grown and how I don’t try to define home anymore because I know it can exist in more than one place. It’s the city and the farm and it’s also right here, sitting by the fireplace with my family on Thanksgiving. I like to believe that I’ll somehow end up in the places I’m meant to be, and for now that is enough to feel content. Happy harvest, with many thanks.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A Love Poem

New York City, you have ruined me. Now, wherever I go, my heart beats to the pulse of your traffic, the Hudson flowing through my veins like melted ice cream from the trucks on your every corner. I crave the rumble of your subway beneath my feet, the residue drip from your buildings on the arch of my cheek. In the morning I wake with you wrapped around me. At night you shine brighter than the stars you obscure. You tease me with luxuries you never see through, promises of penthouses and candlelit dinners, and in a storm you toss me to the wind, drop me in puddles that form mercilessly in your potholes, leave me soaking on the corner while your cabs refuse to pause. Yet still I come crawling back to you, stumbling down Broadway as if I could have escaped- the bottoms of my jeans drag in your rain and the bottom of my heart aches for your love.