Wednesday, 3.7.18
11:38pm
Favorite Oceans, ranked:
1. Atlantic
2. Pacific
3. Frank
4. Indian
5. Billy
Denver, CO
The night summer air is sticky and still warm. He's making the walk again, crossing the stretch of road that manages to skirt the shoreline and ocean at one elbow, and contours into the overpass that extends to the suburbs along another. Strapped to his back in a knapsack are the clothes from the day's workout in the spin studio, and a Tupperware container of the night's leftover dinner cooked alongside his lady love, and a thirty-two ounce water bottle filled to the brim and fastened tight. It's a Tuesday night, but because it's July, the city streets are thick with tourists and couples and families. The business day crowd is sparsely represented - loosened ties and flip-flops beneath pencil skirts confessing to some bit of happy hour fun - but these suburban commuters are a focused group. They maintain a margarita buzz while figuring out a train schedule on a five-inch screen backlit by the ass-end of a maniac firefly.
He passes the fire station that could double as a Gothic cathedral. The piece of architecture is not at all out of place in one of America's oldest cities, and it is a stunning building. But it doesn't quite seem to fit the function of the service it houses. It's too beautiful to be home to such rugged risk-takers, one thinks. But isn't that just like this city itself, he muses - something so pretty that is home to such ragged energy and so many jagged edges. On this night, his headphones insure a bit of solitude, so he muses on that thought as well, how he manages to make himself alone with everyone. All of his engagements along this walk will be superficial. This seems to suit him just fine. His thoughts are flinging back and forth like a trebuchet tonight, and he is enjoying the mental ricochet.
As the avenue bends toward the shore and hugs the water, there is a boardwalk that serves as boundary between highway and harbor. For a boy who grew up in the city, this space is nothing short of a marvel. In the man's youth, this boardwalk didn't exist and the land upon which it currently sits was shadowed and darkened by a monstrous and grotesque girder system for the state's northbound highway. All of that stretch of highway lives underground now, and with the available greenspace, the city created art. Cushioned between the shoreline and attendant boulevard was a median filled with grass, sculpture, food trucks, craft kiosks, vendors, ice cream men, water fountains, benches, life, fucking vibrant life, gorgeous lush growing flourishing life and so....peopled!!! The faces of young and old, husband and wife, brother and sister, first dates and tourist groups and oh god a bachelorette party that he could hear before he could see and women and men and breakdancers. The city is still at play, he realizes, crossing the street at the light that marked the border to the city's Italian neighborhoods.
Smells. He smells home before he can even see it, and he could smell his way home in the dark. The burnt sugar smell of the stirred cappucinos, sitting on tiny plates and stirred with tiny spoons belonging to tiny Italian grandfathers, speaking large Italian into their espresso with massive gesticulation and big passion, big cigars clenched between fat fingers or pouting lips, was the north star for his walk home. The sugar pointed an arrow to the dark chocolate and pastry smell of the city's most famous sweet shop, and the stink of all-day city walking drifted off the tourists who were told to sojourn to the confectionary capital for a treat. From there, it was a quick waft, sniff, and a bump to the smoky wisdom of the underground cigar lounge, which meant that the spiced capers in the just-about-perfect fra diavolo sauce from his favorite dining spot were just around the corner, waving him home. He is greeted at his door by the loving calamity of the Portuguese family that runs the late-night diner. Cigarettes and coffee and marijuana signal his arrival home. He removes his headphones and comes back to himself. In a month, he'll be leaving all of this behind. He doesn't know it yet. Home is about to call him away.
11:38pm
Favorite Oceans, ranked:
1. Atlantic
2. Pacific
3. Frank
4. Indian
5. Billy
Denver, CO
The night summer air is sticky and still warm. He's making the walk again, crossing the stretch of road that manages to skirt the shoreline and ocean at one elbow, and contours into the overpass that extends to the suburbs along another. Strapped to his back in a knapsack are the clothes from the day's workout in the spin studio, and a Tupperware container of the night's leftover dinner cooked alongside his lady love, and a thirty-two ounce water bottle filled to the brim and fastened tight. It's a Tuesday night, but because it's July, the city streets are thick with tourists and couples and families. The business day crowd is sparsely represented - loosened ties and flip-flops beneath pencil skirts confessing to some bit of happy hour fun - but these suburban commuters are a focused group. They maintain a margarita buzz while figuring out a train schedule on a five-inch screen backlit by the ass-end of a maniac firefly.
He passes the fire station that could double as a Gothic cathedral. The piece of architecture is not at all out of place in one of America's oldest cities, and it is a stunning building. But it doesn't quite seem to fit the function of the service it houses. It's too beautiful to be home to such rugged risk-takers, one thinks. But isn't that just like this city itself, he muses - something so pretty that is home to such ragged energy and so many jagged edges. On this night, his headphones insure a bit of solitude, so he muses on that thought as well, how he manages to make himself alone with everyone. All of his engagements along this walk will be superficial. This seems to suit him just fine. His thoughts are flinging back and forth like a trebuchet tonight, and he is enjoying the mental ricochet.
As the avenue bends toward the shore and hugs the water, there is a boardwalk that serves as boundary between highway and harbor. For a boy who grew up in the city, this space is nothing short of a marvel. In the man's youth, this boardwalk didn't exist and the land upon which it currently sits was shadowed and darkened by a monstrous and grotesque girder system for the state's northbound highway. All of that stretch of highway lives underground now, and with the available greenspace, the city created art. Cushioned between the shoreline and attendant boulevard was a median filled with grass, sculpture, food trucks, craft kiosks, vendors, ice cream men, water fountains, benches, life, fucking vibrant life, gorgeous lush growing flourishing life and so....peopled!!! The faces of young and old, husband and wife, brother and sister, first dates and tourist groups and oh god a bachelorette party that he could hear before he could see and women and men and breakdancers. The city is still at play, he realizes, crossing the street at the light that marked the border to the city's Italian neighborhoods.
Smells. He smells home before he can even see it, and he could smell his way home in the dark. The burnt sugar smell of the stirred cappucinos, sitting on tiny plates and stirred with tiny spoons belonging to tiny Italian grandfathers, speaking large Italian into their espresso with massive gesticulation and big passion, big cigars clenched between fat fingers or pouting lips, was the north star for his walk home. The sugar pointed an arrow to the dark chocolate and pastry smell of the city's most famous sweet shop, and the stink of all-day city walking drifted off the tourists who were told to sojourn to the confectionary capital for a treat. From there, it was a quick waft, sniff, and a bump to the smoky wisdom of the underground cigar lounge, which meant that the spiced capers in the just-about-perfect fra diavolo sauce from his favorite dining spot were just around the corner, waving him home. He is greeted at his door by the loving calamity of the Portuguese family that runs the late-night diner. Cigarettes and coffee and marijuana signal his arrival home. He removes his headphones and comes back to himself. In a month, he'll be leaving all of this behind. He doesn't know it yet. Home is about to call him away.
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