4 posts tagged “night”
I love walking back across the bridge, looking at the city as the lights come on, so I usually walk on the north side of the bridge as I'm on my way home in the evenings; the view on the other side isn't nearly so beautiful. (During the day, I walk on the south side; it's sunnier.)
This is the view from the other side of the Washington Avenue Bridge; it's what I see when I walk to class in the mornings. You can see a bit of the Shoe Tree there in the corner. It's funny how much that adds to the composition of the photograph. It's beautiful to me—but to anyone else, I think, without without the dangling shoes, it's just a cloudy river.
It's night, January, winter, in Minneapolis. It's cold and crisp outside, beautiful. Even in the heart of the cities, with all their burning, glowing light pollution, there are a handful of stars overhead.
I'm walking across the Washington Avenue bridge, crossing the Mississippi River. Down, below the bridge, lights shimmer—reflected in the moving river, the thin ice that coats the surface here and there. Behind me, to the other side, the Weisman shines in all its reflected aluminum glory. Walking to West Bank, looking at the city ahead—the skyscrapers glow against the night sky.
It's so cold outside that my fingernails hurt,
and all I can think of is how beautiful everything is,
and how much I love Minnesota,
and how happy I am to be here.
It's night. the sky hangs close to the earth, full of clouds that are impossible to see in the darkness. They muffle the lights of the city and hold back the moon and the stars. It's cold tonight—the kind of deep, icy night into which people wander, never to be heard from again. The kind of dark, cold night out of which stories are written and legends are made. The kind of winter night that kills people foolish enough to lose their way.
Not that anone ever intends to lose their way, of course, and not that everyone who has ever lost his way is foolish—many a wise person has been lost in the dark before. But it is foolish, perhaps, to underestimate the cold, to misjudge the distance, to wander into the darkness without a light, a path, a guide. Even the best-meaning person might be considered foolish who leaves his friend's house and freezes to death for lack of a jacket and a firm mind of home. The cold kills people every year.
Foolishness is not always punished at so high a cost.
Blisteringly cold, a friend of mine called it. When a deep breath freezes your lungs, and your throat hurts to breathe. When your cheeks and fingers still sting minutes after you've stepped inside to warm them with hot chocolate in front of a fire.
I love to walk in the dark and the cold. It clears my mind, I tell my friends—or I would, perhaps, if they asked. It wakes me up (but why do I want to be awake at ten, eleven, twelve at night?) It freezes my fingers and burns my lungs and stings my cheeks as I walk down the street in the darkness. It takes my pent-up rage and despair and turns that energy to a more positive purpose—suviving.
I walk in the cold when I am angry. The anger burns inside me, a hot fire in my chest, keeping me warm. It forces me to keep moving, pushing angrily forward against the wind, each icy gasp of oxygen feeding the flames. I want to scream, but the sound reezes in my throat and I keep walking, fighting for each stride.
It's frustrating, maddening, invigorating.
Cold.
I walk in the cold when I'm sad. The sinking feeling washes over me, and I step outside into the night. My stomach twists and my tears freeze, twin lines of saltwater down my cheeks. The cold bites at me, cutting further and deeper, under the waves of sadness freeze, until I don't feel them anymore. I'm not emotionally numb, just physically so.
I walk in the cold when I want to hurt something, and I'm reminded how dazzlingly fragile life is And how fierce nature can be, that an hour in the dark can beat rage and sorrow into submission, whisking away anger and despair with an icy winter wind, and leaving behind...
Nothing. Nothing but an empty feeling, and exhaustion, and relief to be alive, and inside, and out of the cold.
I am the little imp who lives inside your head.
And every night when you close your eyes
I sneak about, and peer and spy
And whisper things to terrify
After you've gone to bed.
I am the little imp who dances in your mind
And every night when you fall asleep
And settle into slumber deep
I jump awake, and stomp, and leap
And twist and spin and wind.
I am the little imp who lounges in your brain
And every night while you toss and turn
I watch tv as your nightmares churn.
I click a button, unconcerned,
And your dreams change again.
I am the little imp who lurks within your skull
And every night when you get undressed
And crawl into bed and try to rest
I am the one—perhaps you've guessed?
Who makes you feel a fool.
I am the little imp who lives inside your head
And every night as you lie down
I get up, and dance around
Because I love the life I've found
I'll stay here till you're dead.
