Hey Slowdown listeners, today's episode is hosted by the poet Shira Erlichman.

Don't worry, I'll be back on August 28th.

I'm Shira Erlichman and this is The Slowdown.

In our old apartment, if it wasn't one thing, it was another.

A storm could mean the ceiling would split, we'd have to grab a bucket to hold back the leak.

Sometimes large swaths of ceiling would ripple.

We'd throw an old painter's tarp across the bookcase and our valuables and hope for the best.

Or it was the toilet, the handle jiggling dysfunctionally.

Twice, a bottle of vitamins fell from the cabinet and cracked the cheap sink.

Holes everywhere.

Even when fixed, they'd return.

When our fridge broke mid-summer, the whole apartment reaked of spoil.

The landlord was slow and barely bothered to respond.

So much hinged on gritting our teeth, waiting, or when we could, fixing things ourselves.

We re-floored the kitchen, sticky vinyl square by sticky vinyl square, and the hallway, and the makeshift studio.

We fixed what we could.

Besides being old and hardly maintained by management, the building was a living being, prone to moods.

To fix her was an illusion.

What we did was temporarily subdue, patch up, cover over.

When we were able to move, it was to a three-family house, a garden out front, a porch, and a back deck,

where our downstairs neighbors hold big family get-togethers come summertime.

There are, of course, still things to fix.

...