Meditations on Staying Safe in the Bronx

One view from my window (Joshunda Sanders)

“Stay safe,” the white man who is new to my South Bronx neighborhood said to me. He works at a restaurant nearby which had the definition of bad timing by opening up right as the pandemic paused New York State to a standstill. When he said it, I muttered something back, something like, “You, too.” But the weird feeling lingered all day, into the coming weeks, all the days shaped like one endless year.