"Bonito. Beautiful"

It's Summer in New York aka the time of the year I feel extra Puerto Rican!  You  cannot live in New York and not be exposed to how Latin the city gets once the weather is warm and the streets are poppin.   I love my nest in Bed-Stuy but I miss my old hood of Washington Heights often.  I miss apartment building living, all of us on top of each other and in my corner of the Heights that consisted of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Russian Jews, opera singers, jazz musicians, random ass white people, policia and the high end drug dealers (often difficult to tell the difference between the last two).  I miss hearing the rehearsing, the lovers quarrels and family celebrations.  I miss the bustle of 181st with it's mix of cheap and high end boutiques and the vendedoras  hawking their fruit juice and roasted corn and the old men hawking their frituras.  I miss the interweaving of the multiple languages coming up to my window and at the end of winter when the slightest bit of warmth becomes apparent the Latins opening their windows and turning their speakers out into the street.  On 181st and Colonel Robert Magaw there was the house that played bachata.  At my first apartment at 177th and Haven Ave there was the family across the alley way who would have actual musicians in their living room and my roommate and I would sit at the window and applause at the end of every song.  One time I made an attempt at joining in on providing entertainment blasting Mi Gente out the window and at the end of the song got some cheers and applause in return.   Over all my favorite was the older lady on Fort Washington who every Friday night played heart wrenching Puerto Rican love ballads.  All her windows would be open and every light would be on and you could see the marigold painted walls of her home and the somewhat tacky gilded furniture and oversized pots and plants one associates with homes of older Latin women of a certain ilk.  I looked forward to every Friday because of her and almost would close my eyes feeling the  sentiment as I walked the four blocks that the songs she was playing were completely audible.

I miss all of this I suppose because it was a subtle reminder of a life I miss with my family.  And each song and "mamita" from the neighbors kept me afloat feeling supported by some world wide Latin web and not so distant from something familiar.  Lately I have been having a lot of family exposure- not mine but that of other people.  Most recently, last night at the celebration of a friend from med school whose Ethiopian family fed us plenty and insisted on bringing my table of friends bottle after bottle of some sweet  mystery home brew until I was sufficiently tipsy and very much needed to go home.  I like to hang out with the family of friends 1) because for one moment in my very sola life I get to have a familial moment and pretend they are my family too and 2) to see another element of a friend's personality.  They are polite and a little reserved, bending over and kind to children, revering older folks and respected by their families. I get this opportunity every now and then weddings, birthdays, random evening dinners at their homes and what I love about New York is that often it leads to me being exposed to a culture vastly different than mine or vastly similar. I become a part of something new and I secretly laugh inside how they love each other and grate on each other and want to tell them to take it all in no matter what, "you're sick of them but you would miss them if you were rolling on your own".