Near my house are two of the tallest buildings in the county. They are high rise apartment buildings and are almost brand new. They tower over the neighborhood and at night you can see that only a few are occupied by counting the lit up windows. Every week I notice more lit up windows. I hope sometime they are all occupied and at night they are all lit up, then two towers of light will stand above my neighborhood.
Two miles from my house is the airport. It was the first airport in the country to be named after an entertainer. It is one of my favorite night time destinations when I am via bike. Some nights I will go to where the flashing strobe light is, which is there to remind pilots that the runway is dead ahead. There are five or six flashing strobe lights but the farthest one from the runway is the only one on a street, and the only one I can visit. From here though I can see planes lining up to land as they bank over the foothills and adjust their trajectory to the airport. At the last flashing light, the one on the street, the one where I stand, the planes are not higher than two hundred feet above as they roar into the airport. They blast their engines in reverse and in a deafening smokey moment are safely on the ground.
The opposite direction from the airport is the complex of high rise buildings that I refer to as the "city". This is where I take the dog on dog walks. There are concert halls, fancy hotels with expensive cars out front, and towering high rises with the names of large corporations proudly displayed. Now that it is winter there is also a ninety foot tall Christmas tree festooned with twenty thousand Christmas lights.
Just as I supplement my very ordinary suburban life with frequent trips to the mountains to experience wilderness; the towers, the airport, the "city" are able to provide me that little taste of metropolitan culture until I am able to live my dream of making a high rise apartment in the middle of a big city my abode. I'm hoping for Seattle.
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