On Portage, Waiting For The Bus

I live in a downtown area. Close to the corner they call the coldest on earth which is known more properly as Portage and Main. You get around in winter by way of heated passages - either walkways that go over the streets or in tunnels that go out of them; a trip downtown in December is not unlike what you'd imagine a city looks like after a nucelar winter. Very few people on the streets and those that are tend to be huddled in grey wool overcoats and hurrying along with their heads down. A lot of steamy white exhaust breaks the monotone of the visibile background and there is a grey snow on snow on snow softness to even the church spires.

But this time of year it's a marvelous thing, all the grass and flowers along the boulevards are exhausting their last bravado, preening for the chinooks that come our way in autumn: bright and colorful, almost neon in intensity. The night light is uncertain indigo, a yellowish cast from the recently departed harvest moon making it more blue than black. The streets reflect the streetlights like gemstones off gold and it smells like wheat and winter coming and pizza dough.

I've been waiting for the right light, the right smells, the right atmosphere and the other night when I got up to stretch and look out my office window I noticed the sky had that peculiar blue hue that precedes such a night as I described. So, I waited for the witching hour, collected my bags and tripods and things and found a model who was wiling to sit immobile on a bus bench for a while and off I went.

I give you Portage Avenue on an autumn night, the glow of the harvest moon still upon it.