Covered with Trees

When I was about five or six I wanted to live in a house covered with trees.

One morning, when I was six or seven, I realized that the world had turned overnight. I said "I am breathing Chinese air!"

My favorite neighborhood kid LeeAnn is moving away in July. She and her grandmother are moving south to Cranston. My friend Violet, who lives in LeeAnn's building, heard LeeAnn one day instructing the other children: "Don't step on the ants, they are God's children too!"

When my brother was four, he thought neon tetras were flying inside the fish tank. The water was invisible to him.

Sometimes I want to get a fish-tank again to just sit and stare at it for hours in the dark, like I did as a child.

The people in the apartment next door are moving out and they have made a huge pile. There's a blue couch, a Lazyboy recliner, a shocking pink plastic Adirondack chair fit for a toddler, toys, housewares, with FREE STUFF scrawled on a piece of paper . Whole families came into the yard and poked through things. This morning the big blue sofa is gone. The baking pans, plastic pasta grabber, and blue silverware drawer are what's left in the yard. Doesn't anyone like to bake or cook?

I dreamed about the vacant apartment this morning. I dreamed it had a huge living room with a working fireplace and a view of green grass. In the dream I was napping on the porch and a nice lady looking at the apartment had to step over me.

The neighborhood bodega has closed again and is reopening under a new name. It will now be called L's Mini Mart + Botanica.

My three sourdough boules have just baked. The aroma is magnificent.


Botánica
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Botánicas cater to the Latino community and sell folk medicine alongside statues of Catholic saints, candles decorated with prayers, lucky bamboo, and other items.

A botánica (often written botanica and less commonly known as a hierbería or botica) is a retail store that sells folk medicine, religious candles and statuary, amulets, and other products regarded as magical or as alternative medicine. They also carry oils, incense, perfumes, scented sprays (many of which are thought to have special properties) and various brand name health care products.