Sixty Eight Degrees and Sunny

There was something magical about Denver International Airport from the very second I got there the other day. There was construction everywhere and despite it being a Sunday morning before six, the place was buzzing with people and activity. I walked to Concourse A and went through the security line there. I was on a flight on Concourse C, but I always walk through security at A. I've been doing it that way for nearly thirty years.

I was awash with memories in DIA. I always am. The place has a specific smell that I do not know in other airports. In fact, I think each of the concourses have their own smells too. As I walked toward that first concourse, I felt happy, elated, excited. Not really the feelings one my age has about airports. In fact, I think most people do not care for airports. But for me, I felt giddy, like a kid.

Then, it occurred to me. This was the first journey I've made by myself in well over a decade. And if I really think about it, it may be longer than a decade that I've been in Denver International by myself, going as far back as my grad school days 2007 to 2009, a time that seems like ancient history to me now.

I was on my way to the Bay Area, where I was born. Also where most of my family still lives. I would spend the day with my father in Castro Valley. And I was going to spend the week at my cousins' house in Oakland. My nights in Oakland, anyway. My days were going to spent at San Francisco Center for the Book. The trip, although filled with family, was ultimately a week long class learning how to bind books. So, clearly, the feeling in airport was natural.

I was grateful to be in San Francisco. On Monday morning, my cousin dropped me off at the Bart station in her neighborhood and I rode to the 16^th and Mission stop. I'm familiar with this particular part of town, but I had no been there in years. Well, at least a decade, anyway. I was eager to see what the place was like. I hear such horror stories. And the place looked, at least to me, as it always did.

I walked either 16^th or 17^th from the Mission to Potrero Hill. It was about a twenty to twenty-five minute walk. A twenty-five minute walk after a twenty-five minute Bart ride. It was an hour on either end of a long day in class to mentally clear out space, or process what had happened during the day.

Yes, I learned to make books, four different structures in fact. I really enjoyed both my instructor and the other six classmates. I loved the lunch breaks too, everyday it was sixty-eight degrees and sunny. Perfect, absolutely perfect. I thought thoughts, something I love to do. I got to see old friends. I slept peacefully each night in solid eight hour stretches. I thought about San Francisco and about my family and my past, and my boyhood. I thought about art and literature. I thought about the weather. I thought about how if there was no concern about money...

Then I thought about the little town where I live. The little town where I live in the middle of the country tucked away in northern Colorado. I thought about how there were less people in my town than the people I would see on my commute, twenty-five minutes on Bart and twenty-five minutes walking. I thought about my home and all the great things I like about it. Sure, there is no center for the book, no large art scene, no port and whereas it's sunny, it's seldom sixty-eight degrees.

I found a great appreciation for the town where I live. This is such a different thought for me. I miss the ocean, I often want to be back on the west coast: somewhere, anywhere between San Francisco and Astoria. But here, I was, back in San Francisco, and the greater Bay Area and suddenly I saw the merits of home and the quiet life that I have. I would say this is something Kobo Abe might know something about, who knows? But suddenly, for the first time in my life, I wasn't distracted with wanting to be elsewhere.