Tracks in the snow. They were just there outside the window. So much prettier and quieter and colder than the flakes we’re used to dealing with. Then the subway went by and I remembered I was late.

I walk by a couple of things every day, most days, some days. The deli right on the corner. Someone smiling across the street. A pile of garbage. My mailbox. All these are the places and things I call home. I tend to notice these kind of things: the smiles, the garbage, the moments of the day. A woman has been hanging out on my Bushwick street. She has probably been there since long before I moved here or started noticing. But I like the fact that I walk by her every day, most days, some days.

She sits outside. I wonder what will happen when it is cold?

Reddening trees at Fermi Park — photo by Jeremy Sapienza

I live just feet from Fermi Playground at Central and Troutman. Over the last couple of years, I have seen a marked change in its users. During the day, children played on the equipment and its cluster of picnic tables and spread of benches went unused except by a few watchful parents. At nightfall, the dealers moved in, intimidating passers-by and making sales at the tables.

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Sigh. I don’t know how long it will take for me to get used to the world dying every year. My brain can’t understand the concept of “growing season” — let alone the word “season” itself used to describe anything but when pale tourists swarm my home country. I do welcome the month or so between the 90-degree sweltering and the bare trees. This pleasant 65-75 deal we have going on is nice.

I sat in the park recently, chatting with a friend on a bench in the center of our lovely Maria Hernandez Park, among the reddening trees. We talked about — what else? — the Wall Street bailout as teenagers jumped the embankments on their skateboards, sometimes busting their asses, often executing impressive moves. Other people cruised by on their bicycles as parents walked their plaid-skirted daughters home from school. A disowned soccer ball rolled through the scene, accentuating the sense of leisurely chaos.

I think that plaza is my favorite spot in Bushwick.

Bushwick’s many layers reveal themselves on a walk down Knickerbocker. I took home a tasty tiramisu and this picture after stopping at Circo’s Pastry Shop. You can smell this place when you get off the M train.

There’s something about New York and eating late. And I want to show that it happens in Bushwick, too. I hope you had just as good a dinner as I did. We cooked empanadas. Actually, I took the picture and she assembled the food. I’m not good with spices. Everything tastes like it was catered by Mrs. Dash if I get near the stove. I’m good at doing the dishes or at least that’s what they tell me to get me to do the dishes.