June 21, 2015
23 – A Rush of Luddite Pride
Summer arrived this morning, but we wait until deep into the afternoon to step outside the motel room and see for ourselves. We head out on foot with Walter. He feels much better after a lazy morning of sleeping for half an hour, waking up, moving to a different spot on the bed, and repeating the process over and over again. And as he feels better, so do Kristen and I. It continues to amaze me how much our happiness and well-being is tied to his. It seems like every day we love him a little bit more than the day that came before.
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The air is heavy with heat and humidity after an afternoon thunderstorm. Even though we walk at a normal pace, sweat turns the hair above my neck dark and wet and beads of sweat cover my forehead. It's a preview of our Midwest future. We walk past old houses with like eight bedrooms that have been turned into housing for college students. Mountain bikes and dirty old couches and empty beer cans decorate the covered porches that front the street, in the same way they do in every proper college town in America. Downtown is quiet both because it's Sunday and because most students have already moved back home for the summer.
Well, most of the time it's quiet. One of the exceptions is the man in the orange-cream-colored polo shirt who's so drunk at 7:30 on a Sunday that he walks through town carrying on a normal conversation at a yell. There's also the creepy-looking middle-aged guy wearing a Superman tank top who rides past on the sidewalk on a BMX bike while half smoking and half chewing on the stub of a cigar and muttering something to himself. And then there's the creepy-looking young dude with the backward baseball hat who smokes a cigarette in front of the adult store and gives us a sideways glance when we walk past.
But hey, we're in a city again. It's all of these things. It's more diverse, more creative, and more full of the wonderful distractions I'd expect from a place that's home to both Cornell University and Ithaca College. We pass by the waffle bar, the juice bar, and the kava bar in favor of Indian food. We savor the veggie pakoras and the chicken tikka masala, knowing that it's the kind of stuff we may not see again for a month or two.
The late evening brings the perfect temperature for walking around, so that's what we do. We want ice cream cones, but in a rush of Luddite pride we vow not to use our magic phones to try and find where to get them. This means we see most every corner of downtown Ithaca and still in the end we don't find anything. But it doesn't matter; we feel silly and happy, undistracted and unburdened, strong and rested in both body and mind.
When we return to the motel room we're met with excited licks and grunts and head butts from Walter. Then he gets up, moves to a different spot on the bed, and falls asleep.
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