view from Level 5

Traffic. Noise. Construction dust and the snapping sparks from the welders' torch, sirens, conversation, and the talking elevator (a woman with a nasal Australian accent).

Press five to go to roof level. We don't get covered parking. We're lucky to get parking at all. After pushing my body through 12 minutes and several blocks of city sidewalk, the automatic door heaves itself open and I'm 20 feet from my car.

It's a beautiful day, not that I usually notice because I concentrate on crossing three streets without incident and navigating the construction zone with its clumps of hardened soil and uneven sidewalks. Sometimes I realize my shoulders are hunched and I walk with my body closed around itself, protecting me from what, I don't know. I just know that it feels appropriate.

Atop the parking garage, it occurs to me to look up, and my head keeps traveling in an arc above the horizon. The sky is spotless, a fact made more evident by the clear sky--the kind of sky you can only get in a dry climate. This is the very climate that makes March tolerable for me. The blue seems to be drifting down over the city and I wonder why the world can't invert itself just for a moment so we can be on the more beautiful of the two planes.

I can't get to the sky, so I tilt my head back and take a picture, but it's not so easy. There's nothing to anchor me, nothing to help keep me from spinning and falling onto the textured concrete. I'm dizzy but when I look through the viewfinder, I get that sensation of falling up and it's not at all unpleasant. It takes a few tries to snap a picture when I'm not swaying from the lack of an object to give my brain perspective. The sky is absolutely empty and I envy it that.

Afternoon sky, 3-11-2009, 3:00 p.m.