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The night is filled with the kind of cold that
grips your bones
and won’t let go. After the usual wrestle to get out of the door, I finally
set off.
The sky is exceptionally clear for being in the city and I see
the winter constellations laughing at me from their perch
in the sky, hot
enough and bright enough to blaze across light years, but not enough to warm
my bones tonight.
I have given myself just enough time to make it to work on
time if I jog some of the way. The streets are quiet
except for the occasional
rumble of music coming from the deadbeat clubs flanking me along my route.
I pass
by scattered couples sharing cigarettes in doorways huddled close to
keep warm. Most of the people I see are just
getting started on their nightly
excursions and I try to warm myself with remembrances of times when I was the
one
lingering in heated bar patios, deep in conversation with a beautiful woman,
just newly born on the night. The orange
muck of the streetlights casts dim
shadows on the pavement as I walk, somehow making me feel even colder. This is
my morningtime, and I see these things through sleepy eyes, and a foggy brain
full of all my working-life apprehensions.
All of my friends are going to bed
around this time, and it’s funny to think of how offset I am from the rest of
the world. My day is just beginning, no sunrise to greet me, only the dull
prospect of another long night ahead,
as I cut through the cold. I walk by the
jail and the hive of bail bond houses that haunt this place and even their
eternal neon gleam cannot stifle the black alleyways and dead end roads that
criss-cross my way. I am walking
fast so I can save some time. It’s always good
to show up a little early. I try to push away thoughts
of work with song ideas,
lyrics, stories, anything to carry on what I am trying to do in my creative life.
My
ipod is loaded with audiobooks and music that I can practice singing to. I have
to keep my vocals fresh so I don’t
lose the ground I’ve gained during my rehearsals.
It’s easy to get caught up in some act of art or writing
and forget to keep singing.
Sometimes one of my favorite songs will ambush me and I am as helpless to refrain
from
singing as a flower is from turning to face the sun. My co-workers look at me
balefully when I sing in their presence,
and especially when I sing at full voice.
There is enough battery power to get me through the night, and I just
have to make
it through tonight. Then I will be free to seek my own universes once again, if only
for a short
time. As I make my way through the night, I am saturated with the
vitality and stimulation of the school that I
work at. Freshly produced artwork
adorns the halls, visages of creation like the birthing of stars themselves, catching
a glimpse of something beautiful, raw, and intimate. I work feverishly on my breaks,
writing, sometimes drawing
or making collages. It’s hard to keep my artistic side away
from my job environment. I have adorned
my desk with inspirational oddities that help
to entertain me and give me focus. Before I know it, I am bundling
up again for the
long walk home. I say goodbye to my co-workers with no genuine sincerity or camaraderie.
I try to think about what they might be going home to and wonder how disparate our lives
really are. Do they
ever steal away moments to drown in the richness of our working
environment or do they see it as a scourge or perhaps
even a sanctuary? I begin my
journey home with these thoughts in my head, this time with the melon-glaze of the
sunrise
illuminating the wider world around me. I pass by the students filing into the campus
and I catch glimpses
of determined and troubled minds eager to seek out their academic
destinations. The city is rising with its cacophony
of waking sounds gradually becoming
louder like a slow crescendo of honking horns, ambulances, spluttering cars, and
helicopters.
The wind chastises my bare cheeks as I cross the bridge over the Cherry Creek
canal, invigorating me like some sort of
elemental caffeine. I move through a construction
site where rings of men in hard hats and coveralls are doing pre-work
calisthenics and
yogic stretching. I sense their longing to build something, to be a part of something.
I
walk past the pillars of the great civic institutions of my city, and for a moment,
I really feel like this is MY city,
and I could be a lord of these lands, strolling through
the great marbled statehouses, drinking of its vigor and prosperity.
I pass by legislators,
nurses, security guards, secretaries, panhandlers, all eager in their quest to seek the day.
I pass by the women of Capitol Hill, sleek and ambitious, their noses not so high in the
air yet as they bustle off
to work. The renewed hope of a brand new day shines on
their faces. My feet hurt by now, but I take my time.
If I slow my pace down, sometimes I
can walk without stopping, one foot in front of the other as I watch the city come
alive
around me. As I revel in the smog, the noise, and the grandeur of this symphony of downtown
living, I
realize that this is exactly where I want to be. This is happiness. My tired feet
and stiff muscles bring
me back to my lair in the heart of bohemia, where I can feel the
thrum of the city, alive and well beneath my sleeping
body.
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