Lost Heart Originally uploaded by prima seadiva

Capitol Hill teems with danger lurking around every corner.  You never know when your leisurely stroll on Pike to browse music at Sonic Boom Records will be in peril.  The sidewalks want to take us alive.  

There are cracks, crevices, and lumps in the sidewalks.  Now, I know other bloggers complain about pedestrians walking on unkempt sidewalks, but I promise these observances are keener than your average blogger.  

I don’t know how many times I have stumbled on these sidewalks.   I have tripped and fallen on the ground, torn my good Mavi jeans, and scrapped my knee.  This happened to me last summer.  And no, I was not stumbling out from Captain Blacks after a pint of Manny’s Pale Ale.  

People on fixies, aimless pigeons, and baby strollers are not a problem, but one expects the sidewalk itself to be hassle free.  By the way, my friend Michael hates the “double-wides (baby strollers) that block the whole fucking sidewalk that you can’t get around.”  I accept the normal wear and tear, but Capitol Hill’s sidewalks take it to a new degree.  They have their own thing going on beyond just the inattentive pedestrian.

The sidewalk cracks look innocuous at first, but once you see how wickedly they scrawl across the cement it will make you think.  It’s like a wicked old witch or drag queen (Ma?) has etched her mark with her filthy fingernails to show that you are treading on her territory.  I think that damn Fremont troll has something to do with it.  Visitors beware.  

The crevices are like little portals into a deep, dark, and dirty secret world.  The Eagle?  No, it is some place even scarier than that place late on a Friday evening in the back room (um, never mind).  Something lurks beneath our city sidewalks.  It’s like an underground party pulsating below, but any tourist or hipster doesn’t want a Facebook invite to this one.  

The lumps in the sidewalks threaten to burst open and swallow us into the earth or the underworld.  It’s like the earth below is heating up in anger for the evil going on its surface.  Little angry people are living there who want to punish us for the times we dance half naked at Pony or are feeling a bit too buzzed inside Linda’s.  That counterbalance in Queen Anne is that neighborhood’s own way of pulling you in to its world of darkness.  This underworld is judging us from below and will bust up through to snatch us.  

The Dance Steps on Broadway really represent the ghosts of past hipsters and tourists who angered the underground spirits.  The dance steps are just a way to entice us.  I’ve seen many people couple up to practice those step by step instructions.  It’s funny, I see people doing this all the time, but then I don’t ever see them again.  What happens to these people?  

According to the city of Seattle transportation website, “Sidewalks are the building blocks of an effective pedestrian network. There are currently more than 2,000 miles of sidewalks in Seattle…”  See what’s going on here?  The endless miles of sidewalks, with their inviting concrete sheen and easy walkability is just a lure to bait us in and devour us amongst city madness where no one will really notice we are missing.

A sprawling network of sidewalks proves you are in a city.  When they connect, interconnect, and lead you to your desired destination you know you are in a great neighborhood like Capitol Hill.  Seattle’s sidewalks do work.  I grew up in a neighborhood that was out of the city limits.  We did not have sidewalks and there was really no need for them because there was no place to go.  There was not a Hot Topics to buy a trendy Twilight t-shirt, a Madison Market to pick up your organic apples, or a Laughing Buddha to get something pierced or tattooed.  I only had woods filled with odorous pine trees and one small, dark, and slowly moving creek.  The sidewalk was crabgrass.  Let’s put it this way – we drank well water. 

Even the worst urban sidewalk is a reminder that you are in exciting city limits where “you can feel the energy,” as a friend of mine from the Olympia area describes the Hill on one recent visit.

 I am pretty sure the city of Seattle transportation department has explanations for this.  They say things like “natural environmental causes” and “erosion.”  I think they are in on the cover up.  The old witchy drag queen is on the payroll with hush money being laundered into her bank account.  

Every now and then, like something supernatural, the cracks are gone, the crevices filled in, and the lumps are smoothed over.  Safety is restored and so is our confidence that we can walk unhindered down a sidewalk again.  Well, this illusion of safety is just where they want us.