Portsmouth, New Hampshire

When I finally placed my car into park, I thought I heard a long sigh from its engine, which was exhausted from the lengthy trip beginning in Boston, traveling North on 95 to the tip of Maine, then South again, finding the way to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the most redundant route possible. I stepped out of my vehicle and inhaled, tasting the water that I heard, milliseconds later, pounding against the assortment of wooden docks that I had spotted from the highway. Seeing these docks from the steel bridge that peered over the city's boundary had caused me to take the next immediate exit, which, in turn, led me to where I was standing. "It's a windy one today," a passing local said to me, regarding the weather, with a charm I hadn't encountered since leaving the Midwest. I nodded, though maybe more out of approval than agreement, because who was I to know what was and wasn't normal in this foreign city?

I looked out beyond the light blue hood of my tired automobile, and it was like I had stepped into a modified world where tattoos and a Zen attitude were a requirement for living. As I began my stroll toward the watery smell, I encountered bright cartoonish illustrations, bold tribals, various names in script, and all types of crosses adorning arms and shoulders and shirtless backs. Earring holes were no longer a standard fourteen gauge, but rather quarter-sized two gauges with black buttons or hollow pipes filling in the open space. I passed a group of twenty-somethings who adorned identical blue t-shirts and were passing out free ice cream to advertise for a bank, a smile painted on each of their laughing faces because today they were the ice cream men they had loved as children. A set of adults were lined up on a church lawn engaging in what appeared to be a yoga class, their arms positioned above their heads (palms together) with their right sole situated on the inside of their left knee, each and every set of eyes closed. Despite my inkless torso and appendages and my wide-eyed, curious visage, I felt like I was at home, and I got the feeling that everybody else in the world would, as well, if they were so lucky to enter this town.

The park that lay before me just a single block away was a scene from a movie with perfectly placed extras scattered about. The area was two football fields in length, and a fifty-yard dash in width. Greens exploded from every hidden pocket of the setting, ranging from celadon to olive to emerald to lime, and it suddenly became clear to me why a soldier's Battle Dress Uniform contained the assortment of greens that it did. The football field measurement excluded the perfectly square garden that ran parallel to the closest right-hand corner of the grassy plain. The square's four corners withheld two marble fountains with incandescent water spraying from statues shaped like Cupid and blossoming daisies engulfed in rich, extravagant vines. A two-foot tall freshly painted picket fence surrounded the quadrilateral with two gates on the East and West sides, and it appeared as if only couples were entering, two-by-two, like animals onto the ark.

As my right foot touched the grass in the park for the very first time, I immediately felt the urge to pull off my five-dollar flip-flops and jazz step rather than merely walk - the park had a playful ambiance about it, and it sang to me about how I should fall into character. Upon entering the field, my gaze immediately shifted toward several young boys playing a pick-up game of football, their makeshift jerseys spilling across their underdeveloped shoulders, an addition that I was sure their Stepford Wives mothers had whipped up during a break from their picturesque quilting circle. Each boy on defense was running full force toward the child with the ball in his hand and had no discernable game plan in mind. The remainder of the boys, who were on offense, jumped wildly at the oncoming defenders, and only one tackle was successful. The boys' determined sprints and the steady brightness in their eyes made it appear as if they had only just begun, but the dark sweat stains spotting their red or blue jerseys gave them away as having been there for some time. Granite benches lined the sidewalks on the interior of the park and were filled with people of all ages. The sitters were engaged in either conversing amongst themselves or conversing with others passing by, and it seemed as if everybody really did know everyone else, like maybe they had known each other for the entirety of their respective lives. A cluster of five teenagers flung a bright pink Frisbee around their improvised pentagon, accentuating the past time with trick throws and trick catches - one fling from beneath the knee was answered with one catch behind the back. Two elementary-aged children, one