DB: A Hope Fullfilled

So … things turned around a bit last week, huh? Or at least they seemed to. It’s hard to say, but my perception of the world I live in was forever altered on Tuesday night.

Funny how I can get into this headspace where the world around me is shut out. I can’t see anything awesome, its like I’m impervious to awesome and all I can see is my current mess. The unpaid bills, the empty cat bowl…the passed out party-lesbians in my hallway, the milk souring in the bowl on the shelves at the top of the stairs …

On rare occasion, the universe or the master of the universe or me or SOMETHING, seems to get a hold of my awesome-awareness and changes my day like a bowling-ball changes the arrangement of pins. Last week happened as I expected it to, I woke up an wrote my semi-suicidal blog on seasonal depression and prepared myself for the wacky and hellish trial of trying to collect rent from the motley crew of madmen that I’m sharing the warehouse with. It’s times like this that I need to be on my creative edge, dig in my claws and rip out a contract for someone that involves me being paid for my awesome … but my awesome is in bed with a flu … and all I can see is the space of sky between the cold sound and the bridge, cold and brutal, ladders waiting with singing rungs. Catwalk swaying in the breeze to the melancholy hymn of the coming frost.

Then as I tromped through the puddly alleyway that leads me to the caffeine that I must have, a familiar sound brought my eyes up from the wet cuffs of my jeans. That wound out high pitched whine, that buzzing motion of dirty 2-stroke air….Clad in the most tightly wrapped wind and waterproof fabrics, 2 riders approached darkly. Sending a rooster tail of water from the back tire, a cheap Chinese 125cc two wheeled insect wasped its way across South 11th and across my lonely path in triumphant glory.

Like Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, their red and grey plastic steed charging the back-ways of our mazes, I stared in contrite adoration of their adventure. My heart warmed with the rush of hope that comes with a combination of fond memory and the promising future of the many miles left on my own moto. The way she held him, helmet turned to the side and pressed tight against his back … He wore a black bandana up around his nose like a bandit. A heart thief, buzzing his way through my awesome activation pattern.

That night a friend invited me out for a drink at Doyle’s to watch and see who our new president was going to be.

I didn’t really consider myself an Obama supporter, not in any sort of meaningful way. Hope is a word that was thrown around a lot for me growing up in the faith healing movement in charismatic Colorado. People love hope, but as you can tell perhaps by my posts previous, I tend to split hope with a critical defense that has been tempered by many a false prophet. On the other hand, McCain showed all the signs of being a rich old fake christian white dude, which felt like the exact choice that got us into this mess … and always has gotten us into this mess … so …

But the images of dancing … dancing dancing … the children dancing in the streets of Chicago. The images of hope fulfilled, and then the rally cry of my fellow drinking bar patrons. That night we went to PSP and danced to whatever was on the speakers. Old songs, new songs, didn’t matter … we were young and drunk and happy. Happy about something real that had happened in our lifetimes. Something that happened to the whole world, a hope fulfilled. A hope that I was unaware could subdue my critical wit, just long enough for a tear to roll its way through my expression of disbelief at the children dancing en masse on the streets.

Here’s to the wind and rain, whipping against the dark rider. Assailing him as he and his companion determine their travel to continue. Here’s to the wet gloves and cold hands, the stiff knees and pulled in shoulders … oh winter scooter master, your plight strengthens my resolve to survive yet another term. Thanks for waking me up, thanks for reminding me of my awesome.