$1.00 + tax

February 11, 2021
This is the price tag from a bottle of vinegar - either white or apple cider, can’t remember since I bought both there - that I got at the bodega on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights. I can’t remember why I got so many vinegars but it was probably for some cleaning project involving baking soda. 

It’s one of the few physical artifacts I have from Jackson Heights because everything was so crazy at the end that I never realized that I had already taken my last trip outside. I miss that bodega guy and his wife and the other guy who worked there and never spoke but was always busy stocking stuff and selling New York Lottery scratch-off tickets. 

It’s funny, I didn’t have the same reaction when we left Avenue C because we were still in New York. 

I miss Jackson Heights. And that apartment. And New York. 

The New York I moved to and loved doesn’t exist anymore and won’t again. 

The New York I lived in existed while I lived there and doesn’t exist the same anymore. 

I believe that’s true of every time someone either moves to or away from The City. 

As soon as you get to New York it changes in some small way and doesn’t exist as it did seconds ago. 

I have a price tag from a bottle of vinegar from a bodega at 37th Avenue and 82nd Street in Jackson Heights, Queens as a permanent timestamp of my time there.

February 13, 2021 - Editors Note:

i wrote the above in one of my Field Notes notebooks that I use for brain dumps and clearing my head. I decided to post it as-is and not edit or clean it up or re-write it because that’s how I felt in the moment writing it and how it came out.

There is still a lot from 2020 that I’m still processing and trying to sort through mentally and emotionally and there are many more stories I want to share and am in the process of writing out.