Biking around the streets of SF at night is always interesting (once I numbed to the fact that there are a bunch of crazy drivers here that have and will take out bikers). Something about traveling through the lifeblood of a city at night seems to enhance the nostalgia of everything around. Especially with the city coming back to live from the pandemic, the newly formed image of the city alive once again, but different, with the outdoor parklets and permanently shuttered favorites, sharply contrasts to the ghost town of a couple months ago. Because of the sudden change, it feels as if the apparitions of the past haunt the places where I've beenโmy memories tangled with the emptiness and the new, yet changed, energy. It feels like a different life time from the time before when I went. The tinges of the past color these physical places even as they change and shift beyond recognition. I pass the old dance studio, a converted warehouse with a single makeshift doorway set into the white painted wall. If I focus closely enough, I can see through the darkened street, into the open class space, the heat and perspiration of human dynamism fogging up the mirror glass. I pass the intersection of my former home, where the ever-shifting homeless camp set up tent for some respite before another forced migration, bright-eyed volunteers in bright red and white and blue t-shirts set out plastic tables and foldable chairs to get the vote out for the local elections, and I hurried past on early mornings (hopefully not in boots) to my bus stop to catch the 49, all the while frantically checking to make sure I had my badge, occasionally doing a light jog timed to the real-time schedule updates on my 3rd party bus app.
I'm really enjoying these mini-essays. I've been working on "energy sketches" for my digital art, and the idea is that in order to keep the raw energy of the sketch, you need to avoid overworking it. There's probably a similar phenomenon with writing, too ๐
samishii and nostalgia (mini-๐ 4/100)
I'm really enjoying these mini-essays. I've been working on "energy sketches" for my digital art, and the idea is that in order to keep the raw energy of the sketch, you need to avoid overworking it. There's probably a similar phenomenon with writing, too ๐