A Place to Sit: Part 1

I look up above the rooftops as I walk west back to my place from Downpours Coffee. It snowed overnight. It is a light layer of cold, dry snow. I noticed last night, as I was driving to Sara’s house for dinner, that it was a good December night. A Colorado winter has come. I walk through the Cap Hill streets pushing a blanket of snow at my feet searching for a place to sit so I can eat my breakfasts burritos and drink my coffee. It is my last day living in this neighborhood (for now) and I want to sit and enjoy it. No place has indoor seating because of this fucking pandemic and all the ledges and benches are covered in snow. And I especially don’t want to eat my breakfast and drink my coffee on this winter sunshine Sunday morning in my garden-level apartment. I see a bench outside Shells and Sauce that offers a vantage point onto one of my favorite intersections in the city: 12th and Elizabeth. I cross the street, it is in the shade but the angle of the bench’s view and the setting itself cause my foot to rise and kick off the powder snow. I brush away the snow with my left foot. Both hands are full. I sit down and eat my breakfast burritos in a comfortable pace as I only know. I enjoy the food and the warm coffee from Downpours but I enjoy the view and the moment more. I try to appreciate the things I see today as it is my last day walking these streets as a resident of this neighborhood. Well, at least for now. Cap Hill and the streets between 8th and 13th on the east side of the park will always have my love. I spent two years living among those bricks and trees, watching the seasons fly above as I sat back in the grass of Cheesman, as I walked crying along 13th on dark winter nights, as I sprinted and smiled down 12th drunk on friendship and opportunity and connection. The green trees above my head changed fast. The pains of spring in this city were pushed aside by the yellows and greens of a perfect summer in Denver. And followed upon by an imperfect but necessary fall and winter in the city of my youth. This city has my heart in its hand. “Do with it what you will.” And the trees and the cracked sidewalks of these city blocks have my tears and the eyes of my memories; I will be back here again. But Denver is a queen made of cuts and perspectives, a culture of balance and juxtaposition. To continue to love this city I must move, as this city moves, as it breathes and advances and falls and fails and rises and builds again. This city is my hand, this city is my breath, this city is my heart.