Too Early to Be Late...

I took a walk -- my first walk -- around Ballard tonight.
A night walk is so much different than a day walk. Everything is alive in a much more interesting way at night. During the day, people have to be out; they have to be working, and moving, and going places. At night, people go outside largely because they want to. The absurdities of the human race are magnified in such a glorious way...as if when the sun sets, we shed our skins and become whatever manner of beastly creatures we so desire.
Tonight I stayed away from the main drag, NW Market St. Its a Friday, so everyone who worked a long week is out to have "fun" at the bars. I'd rather not deal with that tonight. I'd much rather see and enjoy the smaller gifts of the city that hide on smaller streets...at least for just this night.

The buildings were whispering to me, as well. They said, "Come and climb me," and I wanted to. But city people are a different breed than those who populate small towns. Here, there are no ways to reach the tops of buildings, save from the inside. Although I can't blame them for designing the buildings that way...I'm sure that thousands of times before people have climbed to the roofs, and just as many times its been to do something stupid. I merely want to get to the top and...sit.
The tops of tall buildings are such wonderful places to observe the world. Perches where one can step back from the world for a minute and just look at it. I don't know what others see when they look out upon the great masses of people across the earth, but all I can see is beauty. Though we humans are such a plague to the planet, I cannot help but have hope for us. The thought that each being has the potential to be someone great is too much for me to ignore.
And it isn't that everyone has to be Mother Teresa or Gandhi. Everyone can make a genuine difference in even just one other person's life. And that would be enough.
The joy of giving to someone else emotionally is possibly the most fulfilling thing in the world.

When I left the apartment at 9:30 p.m., I had expected an Inclinian level of desertion to await me outside the door. Much to my surprise, there were people all over the place. I recently discovered that there is a park diagonally across the street from me, and so I was going to go sit under the clouded October sky, breath in this frigid air and think about all manner of things...only to find at least six people still in the park. In Incline, this would never have happened. A night walk could go completely undisturbed at any time of the day, as long as one did not approach town. I forget that this is the city, though.
In some ways it is incredibly comforting to see other people walking around at night. Yet at the same time...I wanted in some small way to be alone at the park tonight. As I was returning to base after other trekkings, I read the rules posted at the park...it stays "open" until 11:30 p.m. Sadly, I was too early to be late, and so I continued the extra twenty feet back to my domicile to await the illegal park visitor hours.
Perhaps then I will have the park to myself.
And if not...there is always tomorrow.