I was walking to the river when, on the other side of the street ahead of me, I could see a dark-haired woman sitting against her apartment building. Her legs were splayed in front of her, a fluffy golden dog curled up in her lap. A fence surrounded them to make a sad sort of concrete yard, the space barely large enough to contain them.

O visual symbolism! On your way back home, I resolved, you’re going to take this person’s picture. Taking pictures of strangers always makes me nervous; what if they see it as an invasion, what if they get angry? Will I have enough time to compose it correctly the first time? Ah! But lately I’ve wondered what would happen if I just asked.

Probably, I reasoned twenty minutes later on my return, the woman would be gone by the time I came back.

But no; as I approached I saw that now, sitting in the same position, she was cutting the dog’s hair, his bright pink tongue lolling out of his mouth in sleepy pleasure. I took a deep breath and stepped forward, tried on my friendliest, undergrad-est tone of voice.

“Hey there! Would you mind if I took your picture? Just doing what you’re doing?”

The woman looked up at me as if I’d struck her.

“I HAVE BEEN CRYING ALL DAY,” she said.

“Oh! I’m sorry!”

“. . . But go ahead,” she said.

Back at home, I’d managed to pack my messenger bag for storage before I packed the things I was bringing to New York. I was so aggravated with myself over this, I vowed to bring my laptop to work everyday in the only bag I hadn’t packed: a dumb thin H&M tote bag that featured a graphic of a gun tied in a bow, and the text: Knot Violence. Detached, cutesy pacifism. Cool, Adrianne.

The straps to this tote bag are narrow blades, and the seams strained under the laptop’s weight. Every day I threw in a tupperware full of salad, two smartphones, a charger, a large wallet, and a notebook, and I frowned my way into work for the past week. My shoulder usually had a bright red indent on it, my shirts pulled and stretched. I debated replacing the bag, but in one week I had already gone through my budget for the month. The other night I actually logged in to view my bank statements and went through all my transactions to verify there hadn’t been any fraud. Surely someone stole that money from me, right? Some power-drunk teen in a Best Buy? Nope. I was the one paying for all those things. Living is just expensive, here. A new bag, especially a new bag whose functional twin lay packed back in Minneapolis, was a luxury I couldn’t afford. And didn’t deserve, obviously. Yeah! Stupid box-packin’ asshole!

The other day as I heaved open the first door to our apartment building, the doorknob caught on the tote bag’s strap and then swung closed behind me. My bag sang a short swan song as it tore a full third of the way down.

Riiiiiiiiiip!

I cried out a brief denial. Gritted my teeth.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. You’ll still use it.”

That will teach you, to pack away something important. That will teach you, to spend five dollars on butter, nine dollars on almond bars.

But the next day as I put the laptop back into the bag, it ripped some more. It ripped again when I reached in to grab my wallet at the subway, and again when I dug for my phone. It was starting to hang funny off my shoulder, jutting out at odd angles and banging into strangers as I walked. I wondered if I’d snag it on another benign object, sending everything I needed to function in this city scattering onto the train tracks, a puddle of rancid oils and hamburger wrappers.

Two blocks away from my apartment, I had recently become aware of a Brooklyn Industries store. I’ve never been a huge fan of any pricier business whose main design element is their logo. But I was entering a forgiving mood toward myself; and forgiveness has a tendency to extend, the length of its radius in direct proportion to the strength of its core.

My universal forgiveness at that point, handily, was at about two blocks. I walked in with my tattered Knot Violence bag, set my laptop on the store counter. “Can you help me? I need something that will fit this. That I can use to commute to work on the subway, and maybe bicycle.”

“Oh. My. Gosh. Yes,” the sales girl told me. “I’m pretty much obsessed with this one.”

That ranks as one of the dumber things anyone’s ever said to me about a backpack, but I decided to hear her out. “I know, I know. It’s a . . . backpack. I said I’d never be the girl with the backpack, you know? But this one’s different somehow. It’s pretty fashion-forward.” She repeated that a few more times, fashion-forward. I was feeling her word choice, the way her pale hands ran along its green velvety waxed canvas like a QVC model. I was also feeling its zippered compartments, its slender profile and padded straps, its bright red lining. “Done,” I said.

I wore it into work this morning, and I have to be honest, I’m pretty much obsessed with it.

Above: all my possessions jammed in not-so-trusty bag number one. And relocated into bag number two, my new friend in navigating this city.

A few days after I arrived in New York, my Minneapolis friend Deb sent me an email. She had a friend who lives in NYC: did I want to meet him, just to have someone fun and cool to connect with? “I would love to meet anyone,” I replied.

What followed was a series of some of the more hilarious logistical emails I’d ever received. “If you wanna grab a drink with me and others at some point this weekend, let me know. I will probably be drowning in liquor and death and confetti.” But I was in Long Island then. Did I want to go to a poetry reading on Tuesday, 7pm? Sure. “Look for an idiot rolling around on the ground. That won’t be me, but look anyway.”

We met at the Brooklyn Assembly, a convenient 3 blocks from the apartment I’m staying in, for the reading. “Cheers. Welcome to New York,” Dolan said, handing me a gin and tonic. “Whee!” I said, raising a very full (and soon I would discover very potent) tumbler. I turned my head, and just like that, two of my friends from Minneapolis — people whom I tended to run into at nearly every event I went to in the twin cities, and also friends of Deb’s — were standing right there, smiling at me.

“Jeff! MC!”

That homey feeling, of just running into someone you know, without planning it, hasn’t worn off since. Countless times I’ve visited New York, and even the whole week I’d stayed here up until that evening, it had always felt more like a sociological experiment than a place I belonged. Moon landing, maybe, something that involved gearing up, storing oxygen. Or like Clarice venturing into the prison hallways to visit Hannibal; I kept my eyes open, I took notes. And I wondered if the month here would feel like the years I lived in Boston, technically connected but held at arm’s length, somehow. Always translating. Never native.

But so few people are native here. There’s a kind of camaraderie in it. That night, I thought to myself for the first time: You know, I could live here.

A hand in the bushes, lit by a nearby softball game. New condo developments and in the distance, the Manhattan Bridge. Day 6, part 2! (Enjoying it larger, also.)

Rooftop of an unmarked building along Wythe Avenue — a failed escape.