The trip home

I know I usually write things that somehow tie back in to a bigger reality in life but tonight I’m just writing because I want too. Or, as Oscar Wilde would say, “Art for the sake of art.”

We had our first snow fall of the season in the Metro area today, none of it stuck but it’s obvious that nature is serving notice that summer is on its way out and winter is fast approaching. In the mean time we’re stuck in that beautiful purgatory known as autumn where the world is momentarily suspended between the two stark contrasts of blazing heat, and freezing cold. Fall is probably my favorite time of year not because of the changing colors of the leaves but because of the unique feel in the air. There’s a certain chill in the breeze that only happens this time of year that makes me feel more alive and self aware. It seeps down deep into the marrow of my bones until I feel like I’ve ceased to exist and melted into the world around me, walking across campus with the granite mountains of the Rockies behind me and the concrete mountains of downtown before of me. The sounds of helicopters and airplanes flying overhead with only the flashing of their lights set against the night sky to alert you to their physical location. On the bus you can listen to the ebb and flow of conversation, the various accents from all over the world occasionally punctured by bursts of laughter reminding us of our common humanity regardless of where, or what, we call home. I get off at my stop and melt back into the chill of fall as I walk past Tommy’s Thai food, Enzo’s End pizzeria; with a bar strait out of Hopper’s “Nighthawks”, and the flower shop with gang signs carved into the grills of the air conditioner units hanging out of the windows. The white Christmas lights wrapped around Bastien’s wink at me from across the street welcoming me home after a long day of classes. I admire the tiny plants growing up between the cracks in the asphalt refusing to be choked out by the world around them not caring that the world considers them weeds that are simply a nuisance, bent on surviving in their adverse circumstances. As I turn the corner I look at the half burnt-out Monroe Liquor Store sign, with its chipped white paint and think that it looks like something from a grainy black and white photo that somehow got stuck in the wrong era. An artifact from the analog years comically cast in the digital age, a subtle reminder of where we came from. A time when typewriters, records, and Polaroid’s reigned supreme never dreaming that they’d be replaced by computers, MP3 players, and digital cameras. While all this is still tumbling through my mind I slowly climb the stairs to my apartment, turn the key in the lock, step into the warm air of my artificial environment, and hit the reset button on reality.