In the summer when the air is clear and the sky is blue, from the mountains you can see the entire city stretched out below you. A tangled web of towers and streets, surrounded on all sides by lush green and dry yellow, it looks almost surreal, a singular mass of silver and steel jutting out unceremoniously from bare farmland and sun baked earth. From this far distance my eye encompasses everything from the ugly docks to the italian corner of town, where doormen and women display menus and bright smiles to the bustling passers by. From the wide streets walled on each side by towering glass to the narrow laneways packed with cafe goers and brunch eaters, to the old goal marking some odd turning point in a forked road. The path i had walked each night for a month from one side of the city to the other - the grand dreams that marked those sidewalks - all held in this singular view, spanning past and beyond into the pure sky behind and around.
The mountains stand alone, touching that deep blue canopy. Shrouded in mist and sunlight, they dont ask anything of us. They dont demand and they dont mourn. They dont rage nor do they age or wither or crumple into nothing. On their shoulders the world rests, running through that familiar cycle.
