While rumors had been circulating about the impending reopening of Walnut Street Bridge, our local contractors pulled through and opened the bridge this morning as J and I rolled to Breakfast on the Bridge.
Colleen not only captured our interesting visitors, but she also did a "play-by-play" (roll by roll?) of the actual opening. The new planks are quite pretty—someone mentioned they have a chemical-ly smell, but I was cruising too fast and talking too much to notice this morning.
(Photo by Colleen)
My little blurb about the reopening is on Chattarati—and check the editorial commentary on their homepage. There I am! Twice! After a year of writing and practically no bylines, I'm ecstatic to be writing about one of my passions on the innarwebs.
After the eventful morning, I did a thorough cleaning of every room in my house but the kitchen. (It's easy, and I'm saving it for last—or for "someone special," if you catch my drift. He's good at that room). I was inspired to clean by my neighbors upstairs. They moved back in a few months ago and their apartment is totally transformed! My neighbor had just put a sign up on her porch that said "Everything grows with love." While I'm not typically one to take note of those cutesy signs, this one seemed so fitting.
My house doesn't look fantastic from the street—in fact, it's quite ugly. Big white abestos siding (really? no wonder I don't have a lease!) covers the whole thing, and it looks like someone closed off the upstairs front porch many years ago and installed tiny, disgusting windows. But in the eight and a half months I've lived here, this apartment has grown on me, and I have grown into my apartment, "giving it love, paint, bicyles and furnishings.
The neighbors (well, most of them) have been so caring and kind. We all maintain relatively quiet lives, and we go about our day with few crashes, bangs and yells. I consider the drama to be considerably lower than past apartments. Most impressive though is the inside of the apartments. While they're mostly identical, each one is different and tells a different story. My floors are not nearly as pretty as upstairs; next door, a rigged "stacked" washer and dryer gets the trick done; and upstairs, a porch backs up to the cool, dark hill, away from the noise of the street.
Yesterday on my way home I saw a Tea Party gathering in Coolidge Park. The new house next door to us had put his "Don't Tread On Me" flag out. I was quite upset and disgusted till a friend walked by. I told him about the Tea Party down the street. He replied, "So? What's that?" And his who-cares attitude brought me back down to earth. Political parties aren't good or bad. They just are. To add emotion to the fire, well, only fuels the fire, raises my blood pressues and accomplishes very little.
What matters to me is that my friends and I restarted our weekly morning commuter breakfasts. Regardless of political persuasion, my writing is finally hitting a regular local blog, and I'm writing about cycling and improving access to transportation. I live in a highly walkable neighborhood, and I live by kind neighbors with whom I have mutual respect, and who care about similar things I do.
Political rallies, as emotional as they are, can't access my front porch or ruin my commute, or even my mood. Because with love, my passions will grow. And that is all I could ever ask for.
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