vltava

 departing from germany was a two step process: one train (which i nearly missed..so early and so lost!) then a bus.  a relatively peaceful voyager, i was marginally perturbed at the initial rowdiness on our double-decked vehicle; bottles and songs passed like riots over the soft hills outside until… one fateful bottle fell into my proverbial hands.  uncharacteristically reserved, i went to give it back, in hushed english (an outsider), only to have a veritable hoard of german men take me out of my seat, insisting i drink with them, for it was, incidentally, their mate’s bachelors party and i was a parting gift from the marital gods above on this, his final ride.

so, happily tippy with testosterone and cheap champagne, i made my way to the hostel through the czech summer heat to meet one of the greatest souls that haunts this great planet: ALEX.

here is alex:

born bro, constant motion, he slides through this life with an impressive ease.  good on good, good things come to him; gambler in luck, a mad hatter, this boy knows how to live and he is happy just to live it with you.

change in tenses:

i find alex on the bed sleeping (like an idiot) so we nap and then enter the city.   we eat (the dumplings! what culinary delight!) and drink and the beer is delicious and cheap and cold and it is humid outside so we walk to the island, sit on a dock, drink another and watch the sun set in the west.

the light is like a cherry blossom; pink, it falls from the trees and settles on the ground in the shadows, and we hold the blossoming twilight and make promises to the world we know we will never keep because the nights are made for saying what you cannot say in the day.

eyes adjust

we get fried cheese (the singularly greatest thing to happen to street food ever. hands down. get into it.) and go to find some unforgotten friends in a brick cave of foosball (take it seriously) where they play and I suck and we laugh at stupid things; things past, things present, embrace them, the mayhem and the time.

in the morning we rise, perhaps later than we should; bright windows remind us of what we have not done. salvage the day!  up, take the tram all the way out (prague 6), to divoka sarka, home of the wild and the weeds, this park is a place of magic.  a rickety bridge, carved wooden heads, here reality is a stranger, bodies wandering through lilting air, through leaves and grasses.  a glimpse, a natural pool, glacial waters meet skin. astronaut rides and ice cream, you have to see it to believe it,

this is youth, these are the beautiful hours.

if i could motivate one change it would be:

in this city, seek sunlit fun.

prague is a dark party, yes, but… bikes and picnics and paddle-boats (what water! what rats!), hills and hideouts, 

the shimmer, hips quiver

the rain is warmer during the day, don’t waste it.

rheine

it is periods of motion and tumult in life that force thoughts of longevity, proprioception increased, what you wish would surround you for always.

i love my family, my homes (memories and youth relived) more than i love the stars or the sun in the morning... but the world, the world and everything in it, what I want to see: midnight suns and wooden faces, the hidden bridges, hot and cold waters, the oldest stones, how people keep living even when they feel the moon may not rise again. what I want to see makes me move.

this summer (yes, it is november) after my homes, i started in köln, germany.  christian met me at the airport (how one should distinguish friendships) and we went back to his envelope of an apartment, dropped my shit and ran. ran to the singularly most impressive structure i have ever seen, the dom cathedral (the scale, the blacks and whites, what it witnessed). ran in the heat to eat some sausage at a hole in the wall with an open kitchen and server who would only offer more beverages when he felt it was acceptable (do NOT ask!), ran again, drank some beer, ripped a rug, made it rain.  

ran to beautiful bonn and the horrors of war held in a museum, partook in the fireworks festival (sans map! what a triumph!), a rousing night of kolsh (small glasses, loud voices), some karaoke and underground (ehrenfeld) to dance and dance and see the strangers as they passed.

essentially leveled in WWII, cologne is not a particularly beautiful city; grey, more modern, the charm comes from the attitude, a conviviality, the shared notion that nice is better and why not?.. we are all human anyways.  between the banks, the rheine flows at an astonishing rate, and the brown water took me with it as i ran north along the edge, through paths of trees, high brush and a transient community of nature dwellers (guitar-clad, inviting, lovers of earth and wind), those we should all meet to make sure we still live on the ground.  i ran out of the trees, past grazing sheep, and into a cove of soft round rocks that collected the river tide.  Skipping my stones in the dusk light, i recognized a peacefulness that cities sometimes possess, a peacefulness this city offered me in a time of need, as cities so often do if you let them.