c'era una volta il west

Not-so-long ago, when I struck out on a trip up to San Fransisco, I made a discovery. I departed from the womb of my sleepy hometown by the sea looking for life and excitement, and headed north. While there, I mused that I'd never seen a city more alive in my life. The sun rose with vehemence there, and I felt at home. The gutters sighed the first steamy breaths of morning, the factories and businesses pulsed life, people surged from place to place, as the cars and transit below pulsed through the city both in anticipation and hurried urgency. There was no dread in the destination, only zest in the journey and hopeful anticipation of the places to come. This alternately thrilled and inspired me in equal measures. I yearned to be there longer, so much so that it pains me now to be apart form it. The vibrant aura and energy of such a place calls to me still.

I feel no such pull from the place I now call "home".

Here, the sun rises, almost begrudgingly (or hardly at all during the winter months). The people trudge from their homes in frozen, melancholic movements. They break forward from their places of residences like dislodged clumps of ice leaving trails of sludgy discontent behind them, or, conversely, during the heated months- they perspire their way on (and so coating those months in a salt-slime that naught but cooler days can expunge).

The city (if it can be called that) feels rain, or it does not. The only difference here is the amount of weed-vegetation that is allowed to grow. It festers within the cracks of sidewalks and in the vacant lots that no one saw fit to fill. The rain is also in the rivers that gush forth in merciless brown ice, or drizzle listlessly under the bridge in dry months. There is no beauty in this place, to speak of- none for those of us accustomed to a life less abrasive than is offered here.

Here is a place of hard unforgiving stone, pitiless heat and unfeeling cold. In such a place where only the most relentless can survive I feel myself wilting. I know I have no choice but to sink, sink deeper and pray I weather this lull, and the slow-setting in of sedentary existence (here I avoid the word 'life' for, of that there is very little, if any). And while I feel this is the easiest- and in fact most eventual path, I am also compelled to fight. I can't understand why this is, or what part of me stubbornly clings to this life I've made. I can't understand this desire- this drive- this impulse for a path I have long ago lost faith in. Maybe the presence of resistance alone is validity enough for the existence of that resistance.

Some innermost voice begs me, 'continue on, most solemnly though with unshakable resolution; there's no need to cry'. So, knowing that, I will do just the same. I may not know why- but at this moment, I feel there is a purpose, and so I will.

Someday, I think, this will make a very interesting tale. I hope it is one worth the retelling- one of tragedy, passion, and revenge. I think I'll begin it something like this: "c'era una volta il west..."