So Much for Peace

At night it's worse.  The knowledge that tomorrow contains no objectives.  In the morning, I know I will be happy and exuberant and eager, but it flags after hours pass.  I've come to realize that I am intimidated by the city - at least tonight.  Caspian and I took a walk around the warren of streets nearby.

There is a park to the east, culminating in a lawn, a series of crenelations and modern sculptures, and a wall over which I couldn't see, until we went exploring.  We came to the wall, which had only sky behind it as far as I could see (as opposed to buildings), and beyond...  A sea of buildings in the twilight.  Off in the distance, a few skyscrapers glinting and there a monster crouches, the skeleton of a dinosaur - the bridge over the St. Lawrence.

There were bushes and a steep hillside and then the motorway just below the wall.  I looked at the graffiti, sniffed the air laden with human stinks and listened to the giggles of students nearby and wished so hard to be back in the hidden, rhododendron-shaded gullies where the Smoky Mountains keep their secrets.  Where birdsong is too high and far away to hear.  Where sparkles of light illuminate tiny fishes in the pools and rivulets for brief seconds and the moss is so green it looks Photoshopped.

Caspian is so content here; he's content everywhere.  He loves it and sees only its practicalities and fun attributes.  Will I ever be able to ignore the smell of city alleyways where the dumpsters lurk?  Will I walk past without seeing the bums and their lined faces or become resigned to the fact that the person walking just ahead of me on this crowded sidewalk is smoking a joint, or worse?  Will I fail to notice a drunk vomiting copiously in the street?

A city is such a strange mix of flagrant and threadbare, austere and over-the-top, rich and poor.  It's all jumbled together in a big mess, and we all walk beside each other, whoever we are, bound for different places and our paths just happen to intersect.  Curious eyes meet mine, or lecherous ones, or completely apathetic ones.  Young women appraise my fitness level, breast size and fashion finesse, sizing me up in an arbitrary glance.  Old women glare at my tattoos.  Businesswomen don't even look at me.  One has to bear the weight of so many eyes and yet so few, of so much perceived attention and yet so little, as we are just ants passing on little ant paths.

I can never be sure that my feet touch the earth.