Beginnings and Endings (Part 2)

December(ish), 2012
Lake Merrit
Oakland, California

Almost 2 years ago, I entered an empty room with off-white walls and a view of the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge. It was a new beginning. A completely new start. I knew 3 people in the city and carried my entire life in two suitcases and an overstuffed carry-on.  There is something poignant about gathering a life into suitcases and an overstuffed carry-on, and leaving behind no traces of yourself.

I did it again 5 months ago. Up and left. Erasing myself and creating myself again. This time in match-box studio apartment in front of a lake. I own a bookshelf, a desk and a chair. The bed is twice handed down. Both past owners work where I work. If it could speak, I would ask it to be quiet. There is enough space for me and my two-suitcase life in my studio. I don't own any living things. It feels like home. When I was home (in South Africa) and I imagined home, this was what I imagined. 

I guess I am one for beginnings and endings. Middles are fine too -  life has more middles than beginning and endings, I guess.  I don’t dislike them. There is nothing like a new home, though, or a newly old home. A beginning and ending. I want to call it freedom. But that word has too many meanings in the U.S.

People are amazing. I have met many, and I have learnt how to make insta-friends. When you leave somewhere and end up somewhere else, far from anything you know, you make insta-friends. You meet people, become intimate real quick,  and next thing you know you are family. You cling onto each other because for some reason, its important to care for people and, to be cared for. Even if its just occasionally getting together to laugh about how smart people can get so quickly dumb when they speak about people who come from where you come from. Or sitting in the park trying to figure out why boys treat us like Michelle, the extra child of Destiny, when it is obvious that we are Beyonce, the golden-child. 

I have been willing myself, over the last few weeks, to be awed by my fortune here. Maybe its self-indulgent. My aim was to document this short and amazing moment in my short  life - and how unimaginable it was 7 years ago. How impossible. I don't want to take it for granted. But I also don’t want to make an it-gets-better-as-evidenced-by-my-awesome-life-I-love-myself-and-you-should-love-me-too video. Feel free to move on to something else. There must be something else more important on the internet.