Weekend At Last

Work, class, appointments and deadlines, soaring gas prices and the plummeting value of the dollar. All of the stress that lie has to offer. The week is over now. People everywhere are winding down so they can gear up for another week of the same. In the last of the failing light I took my bike and headed for the aqueduct bridge on Gotte Hill. It was an evening of Spring's perfection. It's evenings like this which cry out in inspiration to poets and mere mortals alike.
It was late in the twilight hour. The stars were out and the sky was colored from a dark aqua in the west through lavender to midnight blue in the east. I followed the path along the water on my bike. It's course wound around the foothills halfway between the stars and the valley floor. The horizon was a straight line running infinitely off ahead of me, and giving way to the city below. I rode through still pockets of air, some warm and some cool. Each one carrying with it its own unique smells. There was the musky smell of moss and moisture which rises off of bodies of water and carries with it the scent of life and renewal. A second later my face was filled with the breath of the evening, a breeze fell off and away from the curving valleys to the south, and I was surrounded by the aroma of a million flowers, jasmine and primrose, each variation bringing to the surface vivid memories of unseen blossoms, hikes and hills long forgotten. Accompanying the smells were the sounds of crickets and frogs, the world transitioning between light and dark. Mixed with the natural were the sounds of distant neighborhoods. A family laughing, a car door closing, a dog barking. Slowly the streetlights came on in the world below and the weekend was underway.