New York state of mind. I am astounded by this place. I am poetry on the trains, hip hoppers and pole dancers on the train. I am wearing my red patent leather body suit on the train. I am the grand time capsule of magical library reading rooms. I am the stranger I saw twice in one week. I am the silence of these streets at one a.m. in front of Kosher pizza joint. I am Hebrew script on yellow bus. I am wigs and tefillin. I am tattooed and lanky, round and freckled, lip-smacking and shrinking with exhaustion. I am type-typing in a mind-grill of inquiry. I am late-night bar and central star and all things for everyone. I am lonely on the city pony ride for one. I am those artist-talks in the well-lit lofts of Bushwick. I am the tucked-in confessions of me and my old friends. I am the impossibility of coordinating with lost friends, I am the possibility of strangers. Pathology, the study of paths. Erotic. Erratic. Gay boys and their caged cats. Russian doll girls with porcelain moon pouts. The ones with smart cat-eye glasses, the ones with bloodshot eyes. Astounded by the distances trekked in a day. Where the mind travels, its own complicated subway map of stops, stopping, lurching, going, gone.

I am realizing I'm taking a big, deep, full breath of my former lives on this great American od(d)yssey. I've changed, we changed, they've changed, the place has changed, America has changed, babies grew up, were born, relationships ended, began, snagged, started over, died, reignited. And sometimes we all skip a beat. A reference, lost. The frame, on a strange angle. The strange familiar. After four years away, I felt compelled to make this arc across friendships & time zones. A very fragile, tender thing to do, to see and be seen in various fragments / moments of strength and vulnerability.

Providence state of mind: India Point Park & Fox Point, the bay, decay & rebirth, water, filter, absorb, stormcatch talk with Jamie Topper and her hidden wind flute design, low howls, high cries, the boats, the flickering lights near midnight. Wickenden street, familiar: liquor, convenience, coffee, antiques, sex, breakfast, vintage shops. Piles of leaves like fire, blazing sun too, cooking epic meals while finishing each other's sentences. Will you look at that? Just look at this. Late night ghost notes, slipping into library space, which requires its own learning visa. Feverish grad school chats over kale and chickpeas with Emmy Bright, these days, waking up late, slow, easy. Providential.

San Francisco state of mind: The big old boats slow dance into the bay, and the tall, skinny palms down Embarcadero wave in the breeze like a Tina Tuner hair shake. And then there are the Ethiopian taxi drivers who tell me they haven't been to Addis in eight years but still feel they were happier there than here. And then there's the American Samoan taxi driver who speaks goodnight in Samoan and teaches me about Pago-Pago. And then there's the language play in the Berkeley Hills, bodies cartwheeling over the infinity bridge. And then there's City Lights and Chinatown and old espresso bars where the cops look like they're wearing uniforms for a play about themselves in a play about North Beach. And then what about the chilequiles at the farmers market where seagulls sulked with the homeless while I sipped on an ice-cold pineapple-cucumber juice? And then there's a full house of gay couples at the play about unlikely love. And then there's the way the sunlight kisses all the buildings pink, like we're in Paris. And then there's the chocolate shop and the tired elderly on the #30 bus and the Whole Foods and the no food spare change and the private Google Yelp Twitter shuttles and the shuffle of celebrities under cover over brunch. And the cat at the hipster bar. And the tired man with saucer eyes who came in late for a burrito. And the app for this and the app for that and no app-etite for any of it. That, and the catapulting, leaping, skipping stones of it. No mission in the Mission anymore, but a mission, still. Bless this little cottage nest. Bless this me here in the now.