Meet me at the mall

I write this from the 'biggest little city in the world,' a veritable tank of bloodsucking fish. Sipping mount gay rum without the rocks, couldn't seem to find any in the freezer. Recently returning from a walk scaling the pressure hosed sidewalks of Reno. Visiting a few friends along my travels in route to god knows where.

I went down to take a look at the city. It's economic and cultural death is apparent, similar to the thin surface of Detroit. Yet it's hard to say with my years if it ever held true life at all. And by 'true' i mean facile, progressive, intelligent life. Every street seemed to be under construction. Advertisements cried out catches with a lack of thought, a lack of caring anymore (even about business).

I was sitting by the Truckee River that runs through downtown. A pretty little river with cobblestone banks and a flat green iridescence. A pallid sky awash with high cirrus clouds pulled a light breeze atop the city. I had my freshly shaven head bared to the wind and was soaking up the most warmth i've felt in months. It struck me there, my youth and the way i have forgotten it. I have become so adept and insouciant with my pinball lifestyle. Often i come to new places with my old things and then fleet swiftly barely looking back. It has become prosaic; my reaction time running second to the spontaneity of moving overnight.

And sitting there by the water today i recalled an old physical sensation that resides somewhere in the gut. That feeling that speaks of how small i am. How much space resounds between what we deem solid things. It's the sensation of immensity and it somehow gives way to a feeling of good fortune. I start breathing deeper, grasping independence and thanking somebody/something for the ability to live so freely. This experience draws easily from the innervation of youth. I don't know why... perhaps it's the admittance of weakness or smallness in the face of vast dynamism.

I haven't felt that way in some time. I remember nearly a decade back walking along the streets of New York City. I was fifteen years old, with a heavy backpack... a callow young man with barely a whisker on my face. At that age i felt the world to be a much more immense, active, and sometimes overwhelming place than i do now. Since then i've grown more callous and taken discomfort or challenge for granted or welded it for kicks. But today i remembered my youth and how lucky i am to be here.