Finding Momentum

I’m learn­ing to love this place like my own. Smell it???it’s in the street mar­ket on the cor­ner as the neigh­bor­hood ebbs and grav­i­tates toward it and beg­gars sit on the cor­ner, cups out but they talk to each other and sit in and soak the sun and take deep breaths, liv­ing in the moment. See it???it’s the beauty in the chang­ing of sea­sons. Learn to love the rainy days where the rain clears the air and the wind blows the smog away. Ghetto rose­bushes bloom and turn slums into gardens.

I’m dis­cov­er­ing each per­son for who they are. The way they greet and inter­act with each other, they way they face (and deface) real­ity. It’s in the way we awk­wardly stare at each other when the con­ver­sa­tion trails. By virtue of their char­ac­ter. By virtue of their human­ity. It’s in the way they fall in love and out of love so quickly, wear­ing dif­fer­ent masks each day, becom­ing dif­fer­ent peo­ple, chang­ing col­ors and signs and pickup lines. It’s in how they live fast lives and ignore cau­tion signs because being young implies being inde­struc­tible. Day in and day out she wears her tat­tered heart on her sleeve. Com­ing out of the inner city, he has to hold down jobs to pay for school. I’m fas­ci­nated by each person’s story and I need to sit down with each of them and hear them all.

It’s in the way the masses swell in and out and around on cam­pus. It’s in the peo­ple who fight for a cause. You name it, they fight and scream and give their right kid­neys for the cause.

Hear it from the cries of the needy, reach­ing out to you, their wheez­ing cries grow­ing louder after hours. Intim­i­dat­ing you, scar­ing you, dis­com­fort­ing you. We turn cold shoul­ders and it doesn’t seem right. It’s in the way we can­not turn blind eyes to these things of reality.

I am a part of this, all of this???it’s in the hum­drum of Berke­ley, a city of human­ity and a city of pain.