Week 8: South Avenue

On Saturday I passed by a sandwich shop, one I thought had long gone from the city.

It's in a new location, far from South Avenue.

And my mind wandered onto my old street,

I lived on South Avenue for a year. From the fall of '20 to the summer of '21.

That was a lonely year for me,

I spent Christmas day alone on that street.

The windows never fully closed.

And all winter, a steady breeze drifted through the hallways.

During that year, I fell in love on South Avenue.

Quarantined together, we had far too much time to spend together.

Q helped me that year, and he continues to be a positive light in my life.

But before all this, around ten years ago, I first visited South Avenue with my Taita.

She took me to a sandwich shop for lunch.

We sat at a table outside, and I remember feeling so small.

South Avenue looked like somewhere I could never feel comfortable, somewhere I would never fully understand.

Cars looked bigger then, than they do today.

I had never seen street parking or bike lanes before.

Once I was sixteen I drove myself to South Avenue,

In search of that same sandwich shop.

But all I found was an empty store front and inability to parallel park.

And so, the other day, when I passed by that same sandwich shop.

On a new street.

My mind flooded with the smallness I felt ten years ago.

The same street that paralyzed my inner child, became my home for a year.

I called it my birds nest.

Not only was South Avenue my home, but it felt so small during that time.

I could walk the neighborhood in two paces, and leave the state in ten.

I've spent a large part of my life feeling small, and choosing partners who reinforce that smalless.

But ever since I started traveling alone, I have become a mountain.

And each time I navigate myself out of trouble, I grow taller.

---

Today, I revisited my happy place.

The place where I jumped off a cliff and trusted the wind to catch me.

Six years ago, when I paraglided through the Swiss Alps.

I touched rainbows on the edge of waterfalls, introduced myself to mountain goats, and cried tears of joy.

I am that mountain.

And yet, the world continues to outsize me.

The more I revisit my roadtrip itinerary, with every new city I take myself to, the world feels larger.

South Avenue is barely three paces.

xxoo Ten