City Lights

Tonight, Jen needed air. The both of us were in our pajamas already, my sweet little nephew tucked in his crib. She handed the monitor over to Grandma and we hopped in the car to seek some unnamed escape, some hidden solace. We landed at Starbucks, the grocery store and finally my look-out spot.

Where the hill crests and the road bends, the land opens up and you can look out for miles-- all the way over the suburb and the suburb next to it and the one next to that. In the distance the buildings of Denver stand a bit taller than the rest and yet they look impossibly tiny in the scope of things. The city lights twinkle in every direction and in this one spot you can even look up and see stars. The blinking and twinkling lights end suddenly at a darkened mass, the invisible mountains. It is all there before you, somehow alive and moving and pulsing with the multicolored lights, but you can stand back and breathe deeply. Just observe.

So tonight we drank salted caramel hot chocolates. And wandered grocery aisles in our jammies carrying a bundle of bananas. And we talked up on the hill, a little bit away from it all.