In an apartment in Washington Heights, NY, I knock – knock and rattle the door. Apt 41 welcomes me inside. The Nostalgia of this space has raised generations implanting traditions, nightmares, and stories in our DNA. For over 52 years, it has belonged to Don Marino y Doña Marina, who arrived from the Dominican Republic. Unshakeable and a replica of the holy land, here they created their own conventional, Dominicanized – chaos chAos ChAOS CHOS chAoSSS. Like clockwork, you enter into the brewing of Bustelo in the greca, the Doña serving café negro con azucar negra on deck. She has aged at the stove, wrinkling to the slurping of the sips. She has aged, aged, aged – mind has stayed, stayed, stayed.
In an apartment in Washington Heights, NY, I arrive to the slowing of time — hunching as if I dragged Illinois on my back, hunching until I shrink to the chatters of the chorus of my kin. Every room looks the same, glassware yellowing on wooden shelves. Every time machine exists in your grandparents’ home. It is here where my consciousness travels to dimensions. I click-clack, CLICK, CLICK, CLACK, and I am little- little me, pure and afraid, shouting at no volume. Though I spoke with a boom, I could not shake the room.
In an apartment in Washington Heights, NY, the energy is potent. I am the past and the future self at war. I am big, and I am small. I am all the parts I want to kill and cater to. But here, I come to face the truth, to find the keys, to backtrack to the pains that won’t let me sleep.
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