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Late Night Pasttimes
Nov. 10th, 2017 11:47 pmA decade and a half ago, in Chicago, on nights like this I walked.
Past midnight, 10 degrees Fahrenheit, I pulled my floor-length, down-filled coat on over my pajamas and just started to wander. The city is (mostly) a grid; there was no risk of getting lost, even as my restless feet took me far from the streets that bounded the university's protected little commune. Theoretically, there was danger; part of me (some nights a big part of me) welcomed that, wanted some exterior violence to distract from the violence that raged in my head and my heart.
I never found any. All I ever found was silence, that peculiar silence of cities late at night, nothing but the buzz of the street lights, the click as traffic lights switched from red to green, and the occasional murmur of a distant car, driven by someone eager for their bed.
It was always somehow brighter than I expected; the golden glow of sodium vapor bounced cheerily off the crisp white of newly fallen snow, and the bare tree branches cast only delicate, gossamer shadows. A house I passed once had a decorative fence made of a heavy chain slung between low posts; I was fascinated by how perfectly the snow collected on top of the links, and decided to walk that street more often.
Now, in a desert city 2,000 miles away, I drive.
I pull on a light jacket, not because I need it, but because I don't feel like putting on a bra under my thin t-shirt. This city is a grid as well, but the danger is likely realer -- I have had a cocktail, and it's clear that some of the other drivers on the road have had significantly more than one. Speed is seductive, on these wide, straight roads leading nowhere, and I keep glancing down at my dashboard to make sure I'm not going too much over the limit.
It takes no time at all to leave the streets I know for the ones I only understand theoretically - 45th quickly becomes 60th becomes 90th street, as I travel down Avenue O, my brain ticking off the blocks I have traveled away from home with both worry and relief.
It's darker here than I expect; my headlights seem a very small pool of light against the black of concrete and dirt and empty night sky. The desert is big in a way nothing man-made can be, and the purr of my engine seems a paltry shield against the press of it.
One thing is exactly the same though -- the sharp ache, the tightness behind my breastbone that drives me to move, to get out, to get away.
I know, after a decade and a half -- longer, my brain whispers -- that I can survive this. But I am so tired of having to, of fighting tooth and nail for whatever happiness I can trick myself into.
Past midnight, 10 degrees Fahrenheit, I pulled my floor-length, down-filled coat on over my pajamas and just started to wander. The city is (mostly) a grid; there was no risk of getting lost, even as my restless feet took me far from the streets that bounded the university's protected little commune. Theoretically, there was danger; part of me (some nights a big part of me) welcomed that, wanted some exterior violence to distract from the violence that raged in my head and my heart.
I never found any. All I ever found was silence, that peculiar silence of cities late at night, nothing but the buzz of the street lights, the click as traffic lights switched from red to green, and the occasional murmur of a distant car, driven by someone eager for their bed.
It was always somehow brighter than I expected; the golden glow of sodium vapor bounced cheerily off the crisp white of newly fallen snow, and the bare tree branches cast only delicate, gossamer shadows. A house I passed once had a decorative fence made of a heavy chain slung between low posts; I was fascinated by how perfectly the snow collected on top of the links, and decided to walk that street more often.
Now, in a desert city 2,000 miles away, I drive.
I pull on a light jacket, not because I need it, but because I don't feel like putting on a bra under my thin t-shirt. This city is a grid as well, but the danger is likely realer -- I have had a cocktail, and it's clear that some of the other drivers on the road have had significantly more than one. Speed is seductive, on these wide, straight roads leading nowhere, and I keep glancing down at my dashboard to make sure I'm not going too much over the limit.
It takes no time at all to leave the streets I know for the ones I only understand theoretically - 45th quickly becomes 60th becomes 90th street, as I travel down Avenue O, my brain ticking off the blocks I have traveled away from home with both worry and relief.
It's darker here than I expect; my headlights seem a very small pool of light against the black of concrete and dirt and empty night sky. The desert is big in a way nothing man-made can be, and the purr of my engine seems a paltry shield against the press of it.
One thing is exactly the same though -- the sharp ache, the tightness behind my breastbone that drives me to move, to get out, to get away.
I know, after a decade and a half -- longer, my brain whispers -- that I can survive this. But I am so tired of having to, of fighting tooth and nail for whatever happiness I can trick myself into.
