June.

Summertime.  The outskirts of the city have a strange smell of hydrangea and trash, garlic and exhaust.  Block after block of brick pre-war corridors, six stories tall, windows dotted with the kitties and pups that call this jungle home.

36 train stops away you can breath if the incongruity between mass transit and high-rises and shells and baby crabs doesn't choke you first.

Penny dashed and tumbled and burrowed and bounded over the sand, with a lick here and there of the salt water and a consternated little sneeze of disbelief.

The wind picked up and sand flew into our ears.  It spirited my hat away and coated our picnic lunch.  We forged ahead until out teeth couldn't bear the grittiness, no matter how hungry we were.

Another work week gone, the sun now blazing.  Taking care of most of our daily business in Spanish as the street fills with fresh fruit that has traveled to us from goodness-knows-where.

Celebrating Queens Pride Parade with music and dancing and color.  Greetings of "Happy Pride" following us in and out of grocery stores and up and down the streets.

Back to work in the humid mornings of Chinatown.  The grocery stores flung open to the sidewalk to expel the sourness of rotting vegetables in the sun.  And then, out of nowhere, this.

It's June, and it's subtle, and it's pretty ok.

Lots of love,
~Mersydotes