Last Sunday I took around two hundred something pics around my neighborhood in Albany. I uploaded some of them to flickr. I thought about how when we leave places, there is a part we always leave behind. Or when we go places, there is always a little bit of someone else there.

There are three places my Godmother lived when she stayed in Albany. And each place I walk by--during the day, night time, or twilight, they all feel like she is still living there. I look in the doorways and the windows, trying to get a glimpse of a head or a face, or maybe a cat or dog on a sofa. Maybe someone familiar will come out and wave. Or ask me if I want to come over.

In some ways, I think I was meant to stay in Albany. And this has been a second home since childhood, because my namesake was here. In Jhumpa Lahiri's Namesake, I totally get all the things Nikhil went through. With cultural displacement, family position, and issues surrounding his name. Like him, I changed my name somewhat, and considered changing it further. What I didn't expect: like the book, it took someone's death to take me full circle. and the fact that there is a larger story--and the role of literacy-- tightly interwoven into my narrative and the story arc of family members. Weaving us all into some assorted patches of a stitched quilt.

Around the blocks, and in the city streets, there are storm drains, birds of paradise, and cats lazed on porches watching the birds on branches. Bart trains blowing their horns, like Coltrane calling rain clouds. And there is always sky: open wide, unfurling, inviting me to look further.