Golden Elevator Goodbye

I think my eyes are starting to adjust to the Bay's expanse because when I look East to the Milpitas hills, on the drive back to San Jose, I can see what looked like one flat, two dimensional range suddenly has depth: a low ridge in the front, then a long space behind, followed by the high barren hills rising into the sky, merging with a purple cloud, bending south and west, finally becoming a glowing, molten sunset over Palo Alto.

I hit the streets downtown in San Jose looking for food and found a burrito. San Jose might seem posh, overly hip, expensive on first glance, but there are cracks in the pavement - so to speak - where grunge, dirt life, alternative mindsets, independent thought  pokes through. Forget the phrase "a diamond in the rough." Flip it if you like (a rough in the diamond), or abandon it altogether for something more real: a dandelion in the concrete. So, I found myself at an art collective and performance space (and bike co-op) occupying the spacious ground floor of some old department store. Two guys playing ping pong philosophizing the art of spin, a spinet piano with a sign that says "play me", a coloring station, stalls with artists and art and antique trinkets, patches of AstroTurf carpet, vintage couches, and bikers riding in and out and through it all. A man in a business suit was talking (loudly) with one of the artists, and she told him the whole place was soon to be remodeled, the artists kicked out, to make room for upscale retail and apartments.

The neon lights and cobble stone streets guided me home, back to the marbled hotel. I rode a golden elevator to my room, brass warmth and mirrored walls, a cocoon of light, and settled into a deep, steady sleep.