I have lived at over twenty-four addresses in my life, and this doesn't include the ones where I lived twice at different times.

The Bronx, New York
Middletown, New York
The Bronx, New York
New York, New York
The Bronx, New York
Washington, D.C.
Hartford, Connecticut
Washington, D.C.
Inglewood, California
Los Angeles, California, 
San Pedro, California,
Long Beach, California.

“Home is the nicest word there is.” — Laura Ingalls Wilder

I've lived in neighborhoods that protected me and in neighborhoods where no one knew my name. 
Friends to some. Strangers to others. 
An apartment building
A house
But not always a home

Their structures, made of brick, steel, wood, and aluminum, and their frames enclosed the rooms where we slept, made love, cried, laughed, ate our favorite meals, and partied until I could not remember my name. 

“Home is any four walls that enclose the right person.” — Helen Rowland

They were more than just physical spaces—
they served as vessels for a life filled with love, anger, peace, disruption, and the search for identity, with culture passed down through stories, food, and music. 

Inside those neighborhoods and structures, 
more than just four walls or an address, 
more than an apartment or a house, 
there is a Home that holds stories and memories that shape our present and future.

From them, I could witness life.

“Home is where one starts from.” — T.S. Eliot

Genetics, geography, and fate (if you believe in it) propelled me into the homes my parents provided. 

Bronx, New York

Home Number 1- 1075 Kelly Street, Bronx, New York- 1948-1950 Not even a memory. The building no longer exists. But I do.

A child sees the world of his apartment as a safe haven, protected by loving parents.

The early years. Catholic school. Catholic church. Religious photos and symbols on the walls. The formative years when I learned to fear physical punishment, to daydream in the clouds, to read, to watch television, and imagine myself inside the TV, where there were worlds unlike my own.

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” — Matsuo Bashō

MIDDLETOWN, NEW YORK

At that time, this was the most rural place I knew— as far from the South Bronx as I had ever been. Funny place to go this far to become a Catholic priest. Dorm life. My home for two years. It taught me self-reliance in an atmosphere of adventure and freedom, terror and pain. I just got tired of being called a Spic and Pancho. A coldness that made me feel isolated and alone. I moved on.

The Bronx Again

From priesthood to Junkie. Those years. 1964. 1965. 1966. 1967. 1968.

From my 14th-floor room, finally mine, I could see my entire life flashing between the ages of 15-21—civil rights marches and beatings, urban uprisings that some call riots, that dirty little war called Vietnam, and drugs beginning to ravage this place I called home, which captured me as I was riding the subway to Wall Street and working the streets for drugs and community activism. My life and home were complicated. But they were home.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Home Number 6, Phoenix House, Drug Rehabilitation, 116th Street between Lexington and Third Avenue, New York, New York 10029.

The Darkness- like a heavy curtain- descends upon the stage- show’s over. This was not a home. This was madness splattered on the walls. The ceilings. Blood on the voices of desperation. 

THE BRONX AGAIN

Home again, John Adam Houses, 710 Tinton Ave, Bronx, NY,  10455, 14th floor, 1970

Home Number 7, 495 E 171st St, Bronx, NY, 10457, 1970-1971

In the home with the parquet floors and the mural we painted over one wall, a rainbow to a future we would never meet, two young people grappled with why they had married in the first place. We slept. We made love. We fought. This was a home in name only. These were four walls filled with doubt and no room for any vision of a future together. 

WASHINGTON, D.C.

An efficiency apartment: one large room, a bathroom, and a kitchenette. When you’re escaping from another life, this is all you need. 

Dreams are cooked up, poems are written, and plays were conjured in my mind. As lonely, as poor, and as struggling to find happiness as anyone else. 

A one-bedroom apartment that served as a base for a rising career in radio and television. There was an underlying coldness even when I shared it with another person. Anger seemed to linger on the walls. Apathy filled the bedroom. Ice seemed to linger in the heart. I still called it home. 

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

Home Number 11, Asylum Ave, Hartford, CT 06105, 1974	

Television reporter. Moving up in the world. A new life with a new partner. It all feels pretty simple in a new city. Climbing the social ladder.

Brick walls. A balcony. Turning an apartment into a home where life can take root and a family can grow.

A single-family house in a suburban neighborhood. All that was needed was a white picket fence. A family beginning. Neighbors come over. Not bad for a kid from the South Bronx public housing. All that was left was the happy ending, and they lived happily ever after.

But that was just a fantasy.

All good and bad things must end. And they ended in a one-bedroom apartment, with me just trying to understand how easily it all fell apart.

WASHINGTON, D.C. AGAIN

The best and worst days of my life. As I moved through apartments — I loved that Kentucky Avenue duplex — and a house, I kept slipping in and out of a transient life. I never truly felt like it was my home. Yes, even the Kentucky Avenue duplex.

A real home is one where you feel like you've always lived. It’s a place where you grow, surrounded by a special energy that helps you find yourself.

In June 1984, I left all those East Coast spaces to find peace in West Coast spaces. 

INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA

WEST LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

SAN PEDRO, CALIFORNIA

LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA

“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.” — N.K. Jemisin

Forty-one years. Here. California.

What started as an escape from darkness turned into a struggle between the darkness inside and overcoming it.

Where light shined in shared spaces, where each day blossomed into a home. You don't just live in a house with a partner; you build a life, a family, a legacy of memories.

Where my soul found peace in the harmony of the home, proving it's more than just walls. More than a place to sleep, eat, or make love. A space where one gives more than they take.

Twenty-seven years in this home, Long Beach, California, 2,800 miles away, and a million years away from my first home, 1075 Kelly Street, Bronx, New York 10459.

I am still a nomad, but now, maybe, one with a mast to sail through life in any direction I choose.

“Let your home be your mast and not your anchor.” — Kahlil Gibran