State Street in Spring

State street has woken up. When I try to imagine State Street as anything other than an organic system. A living creature on it's own, I fall short. Too much of how it exists can only be paralleled with a living entity.
It sleeps all winter long. Never empty, but slowed. People still walk up and down the frozen sidewalk. At Christmas, shoppers still make their way through the snow and ice. The irish pub still glows warmly and the Church key is still standing room only on Thursday and Friday nights. But the street itself sleeps.
Spring comes, and she wakes up. With all the hungers and yearnings of any creature shrugging off that short nap of body and spirit. Not hibernating, just sleeping.
Today, Sunday afternoon, I dropped off Sarah and Ashley at the opera, I walked down to the Union, and I could feel her life. Under my feet, seeping up through the concrete, up through my legs and into my chest. And I know I wasn't alone. It was on the faces, and in the strides of everyone I passed. Everyone who became, even if for a short time only, part of the creature.
On the corner by the market a man sat beating on an upside down plastic pail with drumsticks. The rhythm was fast and a little tribal. His baseball cap, tipped upside down by his feet, was filling quickly with loose change and a few bills. The beats alternated between sharp staccatos and a hollow lower sound as he used his sneaker to lift one side of the pail away from the ground.
The sound carried down the canyon of glass and concrete. Two blocks away I could still hear him as I passed an old black man holding an empty McDonalds cup.
I think he would have normally been asking for change. But today I was spared my internal struggle, the inability to give him a buck, clashing with the inability to really ignore him. Usually the best I can muster is a half-assed "no, sorry." And in more ways than one, that sums it up.
But today he is swaying back and forth, and singing a wordless song. Not performing, not even making any coherent sound, all he manages to do is warn people of his presence and divert the foot traffic with efficiency that would make any officer of the law proud.
As I pass him, and today he gets to ignore me - a role I'm frankly more comfortable with, I realize he'd singing, or chanting, in rhythm with the plastic pail two blocks back, still echoing down the street.
There is a young woman walking behind me. On her cell phone, as most people walking past are. She is oblivious to my presence, and, as most people with cell phones seem to be, has no idea just how loud she is talking. That's okay. I'm an eaves-dropper by nature.
She's talking about her class on Friday. She is indignant. Someone in her history class put forth the notion that the holocaust didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't as bad they say.
I never see her face, but I can hear both the frustration and the personal hurt in her voice. As she talks it becomes obvious that in her life, she has never been thrown into the mix with people whose opinions are different than hers.
"How could she just say that?" she demands of the cell phone confidant, and anyone within 30 feet on state street.
"How can she just say something like that. And then when I asked her why, she said it's just her opinion. You can't say something like that, and say it's just your opinion. If you're going to make a statement like that you need to be able to explain it."
There is a pause as someone somewhere tells her something, probably equally as loud, but they must be more than 30 ft away because I can't hear them.
"Well I know people can have opinions. That's not what I'm saying. it's just..." She pauses, on the edge of pushing through something.
"Well, what's the point of even talking about anything if it all comes down to 'that's just my opinion'. It's not vanilla or chocolate ice cream. It's history. If she wants to believe that, fine, but if she's going to say it in class she needs to be able to say more than 'that's just my opinion'.
She turns into a coffee shop, and I pity the people inside. But I'm jealous of her too. She's on that edge. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe a week from now, she'll start to wonder what other "opinions" people cling so tightly to without examination. And maybe she's just around the corner from turning that question on herself. And then the world will open up. And the sun is only the sun because someone told you that it was. The water is blue only because you haven't learned another word for it yet.
In the open area outside State Street brats, where Art Paul Sschlosser usually sings, there's someone new. A tall unshaven, lanky man with a guitar, his young body curved like a question mark. He is bending his head closer to the short brunette in a flowing skirt and a jean jacket with a violin. He is matching his chords to her melody, and as i walk closer they phase in and out of synch. Just as I step passed they find it, and lose it again quickly, but for that brief moment the sound they made was so beautiful I turn my head and nearly stumble.
Radar Dan is sitting with another state street regular. A lady whose name i don't know, but I've seen her often enough. She has large protruding lips and wild frantic eyes that swing wildly though she sits perfectly still. Radar Dan is calling out to girls passing by, "are you a brewers Fan?" he calls out to a girl in a tight pre-faded Brewers t-shirt and pleated skirt. "I think I'm a Brewers fan now" he calls after her as she and her friends grin and almost giggle.
I havee't seen comfort on state street this year, though I've seen him walking all the way over by the belt line.
Down at the Union there is a line for ice cream, and finding a window seat is hard. I need to start keeping my eyes open for outlets. My battery on the iBook is wearing down already.
I find a window seat in the ratskellar, break out my book and laptop, and settle in.