BUSHWICK SAYS… is back. I document lives of Bushwick residents and strangers through random pictures, quotes, stories, and anecdotes. This week I met nomads, inspired folks, and a guy who makes a living off drawing…penises.

Fuckin’ hell, what to say, what to say?

I recently read about a secular group of woodworking German men that traverse the world, avoiding populated areas entirely—contemporary nomads. Imagine a group of steam-punks who’ve perfected the art of carpentry and, for a year, live off the land and work at an Iowa farm for a few days before continuing to their next destination. Once completing their world tour, they must climb over their home city-sign. From that point on, they’re free to marry, work, and live their life.

This week, I encountered a group of traveling Germans—not at all like the not steam-punks.

“How’d you find out about this place?” I’m generally surprised when I find a tourist, without a friend, in this area.

“Man at our hostel told us.”

Until this moment, I didn’t realize a hostel rested alongside the Morgan L stop—in the same hood where they smoked crack in Girls.

“So just visiting New York?”

“Yes. But we’ve been traveling around the world.”

In my life story, travelling the world never protruded as a chapter. Eating a Wendy’s Triple with two extra patties marked an entry, but seclusion in Papua New Guinea didn’t.

My heart is here but is also in so many other places. I am a gypsy, how I settle my heart! I love one place, but my soul takes me to so many others. On to be a gypsy.

I still can’t figure out if Bushwick is a place people plan to live long-term or if it’s more of a cheap pit-stop on the way to better—Manhattan, San Francisco…nicer Brooklyn—terrain. My romantic side wants to glamorize the neighborhood, but Urban Outfitters did a better job than I ever could.

Nothing of substance here…but find meaning in it!

In the unforgivably cold winters, it’s the warmth of a strangers story that makes everything seemingly real, home-like.

Running in your garden, grace paint a smile on my face. Lately I’ve been feeling so weary and out of place.

I found a martyr in my bed last night. It was frightening.

I think I’m more interested in what people are like when they wake up, rather than when they go to bed. 

Lessons of the week:

Don’t look to IQ to change the world…seek your internal EQ (emotional quotient) to evoke change.

You become the city you love.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”