Walk With Me

age

The Arizona Black Film Festival was great! My good friend, the Auteur and his Director were not recipients of the film of the year, however it was a night filled with good conversation and great entertainment. I have pictures, but I don't know how to download them inside the blogs (I'm beginning to think I'm the only one whose Add Image button doesn't work- so if you can school me on this one, the next cappuccino is on me).

Unlike my usual unsophisticated rush toward the goal of "getting there on time" I was suprisingly early for the evening award ceremony. So early in fact, that I leisured some extra time with a walk around downtown. My good friend who was to go with me, was not able to join me, so like the eagle I am, I had to soar this one alone.

The evening was beautiful and surreal at the same time... it donned early with a light warm wind that streamed in between the buildings. That was nice. Very nice. I decided to walk west toward the Orpheum Theater. At 6:30 in the evening the skies, clear of clouds were a soft shade of blue. Everywhere I looked I could see art and felt the magic it created... I wished at that moment as I have many times before, wished I had the skills to be a photographer, taking unforgettable memorabilia... the bright lights coming to life as the evening grew darker, the elongated glare of a car light as it turned the corner... the marquee lights of the Orpheum blazing bright against a quiet street. No crowds. No cars. No bumper to bumper horns. Just that beautiful building and the warm Arizona wind.

I walked to Washington street, passed the old court building (ignoring but well aware of the three court buildings that added to the already existing court buildings-what does that mean???)
I passed the lot where the park in the middle of downtown used to be located. Each time I see it, those round white lights and in all its modern design disappear. I still see the old park, 1979 where homeless people slept. My brothers and I had a name for that park, we called it the "Wino Park". My mother took us there to eat our lunch after we walked into town and although there was nothing special about it, I can still see it.

Across Central and Washington stood the city bus station.... I remember the awnings that covered the sidewalks and the large windows that were lined with new radios and new fans. At night, downtown was pretty scary to a kid. The empty windows of vacant stores were either covered with newspaper, painted, or just left to its eerie and deserted lonesomeness. Kids aren't really suppose to experience lonesomeness... are they?
However, most of the time, downtown was pretty cool to a kid. And on this past Saturday, downtown was pretty cool to a much older kid.

As I crossed Central Avenue I couldn't help but stop to take a moment for the large black and white picture of an antique Phoenix that canvased the corner of the building. It reminded me of the Great Gatsby and that unforgettable picture aging against the wall of another place in time. Isn't it always like that? No matter how much time may pass, we still take pause for the times that have passed and for the future that lies one step in front of us. Always certain to keep us moving ahead, we were born afterall, with the means to double it into the future if we really wanted.

Heading back to the event... full of smiles and good memories, I was reminded that we are embarking on the vest of a new season.... a summer season. A season of survival, of celebrations and vacations, of summer storms, of departure, departing and endurance. We Arizonans know that seasons do change and so must we.
We should not try to function in a season that has already passed. That would be out of order, or chaotic. Who ever heard of an Arizonan who wore a long jacket and knee high boots in the middle of an Arizona summer? Okay... so maybe we might know one or two people (hopefully not more than that) but you get what I'm saying!