Evening Walk, 2130

 I try to take an evening walk here in New Home 2.0 as often as I can.

Evening walks are much more pleasant here on the whole than they were in New Home.  Beyond just the temperature differential at that time of day - as much as 20 to 25 F - there is a lovely breeze that carries the cool, sometimes almost cold air, along.  The days are still long here, so even at 2130 the street lights are lit but not needed as I step out along the sidewalk.

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We live on the side of the tracks (literally) that is far more residential; a half mile away the main road that leads to the more business portions carries the traffic of diners and shoppers and those getting off work.  Our traffic here is much less, residential dwellers returning to their home - if there is any traffic at all.

Our apartment complex is the only one on this side; across the light rail tracks are the higher value apartments and the live/work/walk/dine option that one so often hears about.  Our apartments are simply older and less modern, not less well maintained.  But we remain the island here on the edge of the residential neighborhood.

Walking along the southern edge as I leave, one passes by the floor units and the windows and balconies of the units rising to the third floor.  At this time of night most of the window shades are closed and the windows cracked, not fully open - something that genuinely surprises me coming from New Home.  There, we take advantage of every cool breeze that is not humid that we can get:  electricity costs money, cool breezes are free.

Punctuating the sea of window shades is the occasional open window, allowing me to look into the lives of my fellow inhabitants.  This is another novelty, or at least a novelty I have not experienced in well over 25 years:  in Suburbia in general and New Home in particular, shades are drawn and lights off more often than not.  Here, one gets glimpses into the lives of others:  flickering screens, the occasional person reading a book, people out talking on their balcony. For them, there seems to be an acceptance that there is a certain loss of anonymity living in this sort of group setting.

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As I leave the edge of the complex I start to get into the residential neighborhood, a combination of row houses with faux fronts and alleyways with garages for backs and stand alone homes separated by mere feet built on postage stamp lots.  The row houses remind me of something one sees in pictures of Old European cities without their charm, the small houses are something that I have become much more used to even in New Home with newer building - packing the maximum amount of home into a minimum amount of space.

I have no idea how old the development is, although I have yet to see a home in disrepair and only one or two that look like a rental.  They almost remind me of some mythical idea of New England Homes that I have in my head from some source I cannot fully recall, a sort of Andrew Wyeth sense that defies the memory but I know is there.  The front yards - not more than 4 feet wide and perhaps 20 feet in length - are filled with an assortment of small lawns and ornamentals, some rather elaborate in their planting.  There is not any indication of any sort of herb or vegetable gardens that I can see, even looking to the small backyards that the houses have.  Perhaps they are there and I cannot see them or perhaps people just do not garden in this part of town.

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Likely all of this is what is a planned community; small parks - one could call them "parkettes" - are liberally spread around this area, and if I get slightly over to the West there are a few almost nature trails that can be had.  The streets are well planted with trees, mature trunks of what I think is birch or alder with their white bark and the leaves that shiver and shimmer in the breeze as I make my rounds.

There is really no-one else out at this hour except the occasional walker or phone-talker; we scarcely ever meet but seem to separate to different sides of the street in an unspoken communication that is as real as it is silent.  Most of the houses are themselves dark at what I would consider this early hour.  I wonder if these are commuters to the city nearby via car or those that take the light rail that periodically rumbles by in the background, a constant reminder that we are part of a large urban area that cannot be seen from this place.

As I start to make my way back up towards my building, it is almost always the same:  the southern approach that my living room window looks out, from which I get a view of trees and sky and can almost pretend - unlike my neighbors on the other side of my wall - that I am living in a far less urban area than I actually am.  As I cross the parking lot and its covered structures, I can see the windows of my third floor apartment:  shades up and windows aloft to catch the cool night breeze, but no lights - the darkness is cheap and even cheaper when I am not home and I can find my way in now as if I had lived there for years.

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Coming back in and removing my shoes on the pseudo-laminate flooring before I step onto the new - but undoubtedly cheap - white carpet, I reflect as I often do on the all of this.  This is not the place I expected to be nor the living arrangements I expected to have.  

For all of that it has worked out well,  I think to myself as the breeze continues to rush in and the faintest of leave trembling can be heard even as the rumble of the train begins to overshadow it.