Home Planet: Life on the edge offers both good and bad

I left the party and the streets were wet, looking the way streets look in movies, glossy and romantic and dark, reflecting street lights and traffic signals. But for the first time in days, the sky was clear. The stars hung over me like a blanket. I leaned over the steering wheel and gazed up through the windshield of my car.

I wasn’t in a hurry. It was late, but I was still keyed up from the music and the food and the energy of the people who had crowded into the room. And it was my weekend alone.

A more and more frequently empty nest, even an amicable, every-other-weekend empty nest, is hard to get used to. And after 20 years of coming home – if I could manage to get out of the house at all – to tiptoe into rooms lit by nightlights and guarded by teddy bear sentinels, to kiss sleeping children, breathing in the scent of each one, unlocking the door to a dark and shuttered house is still unsettling.

So I took a detour. I turned at the top of the hill onto the street that curves around the edge of the steep slope that surrounds the south side of the city. On one side of the street are grand houses, architectural ancestors of the more modern neighborhoods all around them. On the other, especially when the night is crystal clear, is a sweeping view of the city. That’s what I was after. I needed a broader view.

As I drove slowly along the crest I noticed a parked car, angled at the edge to face the overlook. I saw two profiles silhouetted against the lights of the city below. They looked young.

The street is a lover’s lane. It is a place couples go, a tradition that probably dates to the year the street was carved into the basalt and Ponderosa pines of the native landscape. And on a clear night the city below is a carpet of diamonds that stretches to the horizon.

They’re in no hurry to get home, either, I thought, glancing at the car in my rearview mirror. For different reasons, of course. They would probably welcome an empty house and the prospect of a night alone.

The next morning, on Saturday errands, I took the turn again. I drove along the cliff and looked out at the city. Not quite the drama of the late-night skyline, but still beautiful. And again, I had company.

Another car was parked at the edge of the street. This time, clearly visible in the daylight, I could see the occupants. A man and a woman, well into middle age, sat in the front seat.

As my car approached theirs I could see that they weren’t talking. They weren’t even looking at one another. He sat behind the wheel, his left elbow propped on the car door against the window, his chin in his hand. She sat on the passenger side, her right arm against the window, her chin in her hand. They looked like unhappy bookends, each facing away from the other.

I wondered what had brought them there. Had they run away from a busy household to claim a few minutes of peace, or were they clandestine lovers, snatching a few precious moments together? Did they drive there to talk about the mortgage or a job or a troubled child, or were they on another precipice, trying to find the words to say impossibly sad things to one another. I’ll never know.

On any clear day you can find people on the cliff looking out over Spokane. Out over the streets and houses and businesses of the city.

I guess the people who live in the homes on the other side of the street see it all. In exchange for unlimited access to the view, they see the best and the worst of the people who are drawn to the edge. People in love, or alone or wrestling with problems as big as the skyline. People who are up to no good, oblivious to the scenery, interested only in a few moments of gratification. The heartbroken. The lonely. The curious. The trash-tossers. The procrastinators. The sightseers.

Perhaps that’s why so many of us are pulled to the place. We need to see what’s there to be seen. Or, perhaps it’s more basic. If I stop and step out of my car, to stand alone and let the wind play in my hair as I search the horizon for landmarks, or simply drive slowly watching the world from my car window, I can – when conditions are right – rise above it all.