Down the Street and to the Dam

I take my first step out of my house and suddenly I’m brought back to my infancy. I see my father waiting for me, arms outstretched, as I waddle toward him taking the very first steps of my life. The vision fades and I lock my front door and venture off my doorstep and onto the sidewalk. In the 21 years that I have been walking, I have become somewhat of an aficionado at putting one foot in front of the other. I do exactly this as I continue down my street.

Cars whizz past me as I approach Hardy and Rio Salado. Usually, I’m on my bike and can keep pace with the strangers who have chosen to forego their bipedalism in favor of more rapid transportation. But today I trudge along as a mere pedestrian, the lowest man on the totem pole of transportation. I give the cross walk button one hard push and then a few more for good measure. Cars continue to be flung down the street in the chaos that is five o’clock rush hour. The light turns yellow and then red and I make all of the motorists behold me as I shuffle between the white lines to the other side of the street.

I continue along up a paved bike path, defiling the space I usually cycle with my two feet. I stay in my rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other and finally reach the dam that divides a dry bed of dirt from the artificial body of water that is Tempe Town Lake. To my right is the Tempe Center for the Arts, an angular body that attracts people on skateboards being pulled by their dogs and moms with baby strollers alike. Scattered around are a few people who still walk with their nose in their phone playing Pokémon Go. I find a bench to hunker down on and pause for a moment before I take out my laptop. Dotted on the lake are ducks aimlessly drifting around a string of orange buoys. A bit further down from me a man is fishing while his dog sits and watches the people who walk by. I fade out of the scene as I begin writing this very post. I find that I can’t stay long as it’s hard to get any good work done in this busy of a setting. I write just a few sentences, close my laptop and begin the trek back home.