Strolling Up Market Street

A light drizzle. I walk down the street, all sides filled with people, full of self-importance with someplace they need to be five minutes ago. I slow down, fall off onto a side alley. Calmly make my way to the old side of town. Music seeps onto the softly lit streets. From one door, big band, another, smooth jazz. From yet another drains the soulless life of last generations music, its message lost on a people who did not share its struggles. They all mix and form a peaceful tone as I stroll to a park. I sit and look on, bemused, as young men in tuxedos and young women in short dresses scamper about between shows and dinners and late night adventure. I see what they cannot. I look away from them quickly, the exuberance of youth too potent in the early evening dim. Instead, my eyes find the lonely old men who walk alone down the slowly filling sidewalks. Worn out by life, they search and find a bar, aged like them, to share in bottled solace. I smile at them, knowing they are the ancestors of those young tuxes. The rain begins to pick up, the street lamps now faint beacons in the mist. I continue my stroll, undaunted by nature. She has been here long before me and wont mind if I do not pay her heed this once. I find my way at last to that one cross-street, the place I am drawn to nearly every night. Seemingly oblivious to the rain pouring out to greet its denizens, life bustles on the street. Here is life. Here is where I live and breath and do my work. Here I live. I step off the curb and into the whirlwind of life. The real journey begins here...