When I asked them to give me a few locations, the ones they gave didn't even include the one I knew existed (four and half blocks away) and did include mailboxes that didn't even exist.
So, I went online. Found a site offering to give the locations of all local mailboxes, put in my zip and voila, there's one right around the corner. A block away.
While glad there's a mailbox so close that I didn't have to trudge the 4½, it disturbed me a little that I didn't know one existed within a 45 second walk of my front door; I've never lived anywhere in which I wasn't completely familiar with my surroundings to within a one-mile radius of my apartment. But, then, I've never lived in Bed-Stuy before.
Since moving here, I've learned it's better not to notice things. Better not to explore or walk freely. Head down and headed directly for my destination is the safest bet. I've heard more gunshots in the past year+ than in every prior year of my life combined. The general lack of safety contributes to the air of willful ignorance that cloys this place.
It's better to know nothing and live than to be well-acquainted with the neighborhood and dead.
It's sad, though. Many times I've walked past the mailbox into which I dumped my ConEd bill, but I never noticed it. Not enough to recall where it was. I've got a sense of where some things are in my 'hood, but not the back-of-my-hand familiarity I've had with everywhere else I've lived.
My relationship with Brooklyn has reached that point where the fascination is gone. The excitement has fizzled out and there's no lust there anymore. I've no desire to engage the borough, no yen to explore...
I'd rather just be shut into my apartment, relatively safe from hails of bullets and willfully ignorant of what exists outside my front door.
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