5 City Things
My shoes have thin soles. I can feel the ground. I can feel every bump and groove. Every crack is a little story that moves up from the Earth. The City is best experience on foot. Walking from one end to the other, feeling the whole thing.
It smells, too. It smells like exhaust fumes, full bins, and dried piss, expensive perfume, and cheap cologne. It smells like freshly ground coffee.
It’s only just waking up. The cogs are just starting to turn. A low grind before it has reached full productive capacity.
Adelaide in March is electric. This is their last hoorah before hibernation. Festivals, Fringe shows, drinking in the waning sunlight, and draining the last of the fun coupons before winter sets in. Even this early you can see the travellers who’ve come for an experience. The locals who’ve taken time off to explore their home town. The school kids getting a taste of the arts. For some this will be their only taste. Tonight it will be mayhem. This is a gentle breeze before the chaos of the storm.
All these people walking by have a story. They have a past that trails behind them in a jagged line of decisions made. A woman is staring at the rip in a shop sign. The sign is old. The rip is just as old and looks like its always been there. But it’s her problem to fix. You can see “When will I do that” written plainly on her face. For me, it is just a texture on the painting on my environment. For her it is a thorn, a dot point, a nagging job on a to do list that doesn’t stop grown.
This is the draw of the city.
The people. The colours. The sounds. It feels lived in. It feels alive. There’s so much to see when you open your eyes.
It’s all right here.
