by Lena Marquise

“It is what it is.”

It took two years of Bushwick living for me to thoroughly grasp what I now see as my personal neighborhood motto. It’s a good thing I didn’t go into advertising, given how much time had elapsed before I could succinctly define my own neighborhood’s character. Recently, I’ve been in search of the right terms to define myself–which I frequently do as a character on a well-lit stage. After all, this is just another stage, isn’t it?