Feels like Today

It's days like this where I miss the water. 

Remembering with a rush...my bare feet, and bare legs, walking slowly across the slick bow of my sailboat...still adjusting to motion after a sleep that's deep below the ropes, the fiberglass, and the sails.
The sun warming the cotton of a tshirt and tiny shorts. I almost smell the fish in the brackish water, the wooden pier stained by last night's Coronas, and the coming heat of a free day.
---------------------------A car merges too close in front and I blink to brake in time! The wipers not going fast enough across the windshield, but squeaking annoyingly all the same.

I miss the Bay as everything gets drenched slick.

Exhaust pipe puffs billow and pop like bubbles. The sewers clog with muck...the discarded little bits of too many jaded county kids. This week's homeless man has a round rain cap and a melting help sign.

....This is how I remember Baltimore when I'm gone; it's how this place feels in the deep recesses.
It gives a little tingle, causes an overlapping of my trenchcoat across my chest, and feels like you could smell the whole city in one whiff of contaminated, chilly smog.
It's a little heartwrenching, a little confident, dirty, underrated, worrisome, comforting, and....purple.

But if you scratch your deep-painted fingernail against the dried muddy brick...you can find that certain Inspiration that keeps the old rowhouses filled with art professors, and the oddly placed venues filled with great local acts...

And somehow it's a New Year all over the world already. I woke up to it in the late afternoon, and went right back under the covers. (maybe that's a bad sign?) Cause the air was a sunny, whipping cold, and I lost the point that I had been trying to say....I gave up. I couldn't find the answers or make any real decision yet....trying to balance a hundred plans, a couple dicy memories, a few resolutions.

But for every couple days you hide inside, filling the tummy with baked desserts, there's a night to feel the city. To feel. 

Cause a friend once said it's been awhile since he'd felt alive. 

So, Baltimore I'm probably gonna be leaving you this year for a couple months. And whenever it feels like today I'll miss home. 

But hey, it's time we all felt alive more often. I guess it's time for 09.

Daily headphones: The Script's "We Cry", Bill Wither's "Use me Up" and (local) Railaway's "Unforgettable". 

Note: there have been some really great shows going on lately! Haven't caught one yet? Try...Fletchers this Sat. for Go Crash Audio, Halfway to the Moon, & Courting Amber.