First Street
Los Angeles, CA, October 23, 2010Seven years ago I drove across the First Street bridge content, eyes squinting against the sun, breath stolen by the majesty of human's creation. I drove back sad, sure that my world had slipped out of place. Fittingly the sun never rose the next morning. Malibu burned. The whole city filled with smoke for weeks. I forgot how to breathe at all. I lost touch with majesty. You made me complicit in your betrayals, no matter what choice I made, and so I chose to feed what was hungry, though my stomach tied itself in knots and everything that touched my lips felt like a lie. The First Street bridge now only goes East, train tracks interrupt the clean lines of history. It's a different sort of majesty, still a testimony to what we can build, but a reminder that what you know can change. Some nights my chest still aches with the weight of that lesson and in late October I always find myself breathing too carefully.