a movable object
I walk to the corner. I turn left. I walk up a block. I turn left. I walk half a block. I glance to my right and I see the place I lived for a month when I first moved to San Francisco eight years ago, when I fell so fast and so hard for this city I could barely stand to sleep through a moment of it.
A block away. I didn’t plan that, couldn’t plan it. In fact, if I had, it might be slightly creepy and melodramatic. Instead I call it “poetic” and smile and walk on by.
Today was my first morning back at work since the move. I went to the eye doctor before going in, so it wasn’t a real first commute, but it felt pretty astounding nonetheless. This is the first time I’ve lived alone in an actual apartment, and while all you youngins have done this ten, even fifteen years earlier, I’m at that n00b stage when even discovering that the closest mailbox is right! across! the street! is awesome.
I won’t pretend that there aren’t some drawbacks. It is freaking loud here. So loud that I willingly bought and used earplugs, and now see how lovely an invention they are. It’s the taxi noise that’s the worst, but the random operas of profanities are the most intriguing. One gentleman attempted to use “fuck” as an adverb and my brain melted a little.
While my dad was visiting two weekends ago, I showed him the new place, and as we were gazing out the window, we saw a young man sitting in a wheeled office chair on the corner across the street. He had a CPU tower in his lap and was talking cheerfully to no one in particular. Then, with his back to the steep incline of the sidewalk behind him, he simply pushed off and disappeared.
That, my friends, is what I feel like I’ve just done.
And it feels fantastic.
cygnoir.net is the diary and weblog of Halsted Mencotti Bernard, a
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