The card game never ends; it merely changes location.
For 8 hours today, we scattered cards around the table, sorted them, sequenced them, and strategized. For 8 hours, we battled: dragons played over phoenixes, bombs atop dragons, building ladders greater than our opponents’.
When I moved to New York, I sought community. For 8 years prior, I lived on the road. The main cost: loneliness. The main sadness: that cost.
I currently squat in my penultimate apartment. Camping, really: a mattress on the floor, few amenities. The one item I purchased: a foldable card table and chairs.
Tomorrow, the game reconvenes at 10am. We will have 5 players, enabling one of us to duck out for a work call here and there.
In 126 days, my apartment should be complete. I plan to live this same life then. Just with kids running around and an easier time to cook.
As the card game paused for the night, one of our number asked another: “Why do you live in New Hampshire? When you live in New York, you wonder why anyone lives anywhere else.”
The most compelling answer she heard: “No income tax.”
Ah, but at what cost.
Julian Wise 