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This neighborhood is not an early riser, not even on Monday
mornings. Not even when it’s an 8:00 a.m.-required day at the office. To be
fair though, it’s nearly impossible to function the morning after a heavy night
of drinking.
Except that almost every night is a heavy night of drinking.
Capitol Hill groggily blinks open an eye around
5:30 a.m.—about the time baristas arrive for their morning shift and when
cleaning crews begin clearing out liquor bottles by the bag-full, tokens of the
excess indulgences left from the night before.
Sure, there are the rogue joggers and small handful of
morning fitness fiends, but each vignette of life at that time of day is
contrasted with another instance of the neighborhood clumsily hitting the
snooze button.
Buns and bits of fried onion and hotdogs are smeared on the
corner of 10th Ave and Pike Street just like the stagnant moss that
grows overnight in your mouth from the whiskey cokes and 2 a.m. pizza metabolizing in your gut. The crows and seagulls are as uncertain about nibbling on the
street corner grub as you are about the decisions made in a drunken stupor the
night before.
Despite the grime, hopefulness for a quick hangover cure
slowly starts creeping in around 6 a.m. The air is the best indicator of this—the
universal morning smell of energized oxygen bits created from several hours
without sunlight (take a whiff tomorrow morning, you know the scent) is mixed
with this neighborhood’s special marinade of the tangy aroma from the dumpsters
outside of Julia's or the Comet Tavern, hints of salty sea air, and general damp from the
excess of vegetation.
If the night was warm-ish and dry, the park is speckled with
bodies and mini camps of homeless or vagabonds. With the sun shining bright shortly
after 6 a.m., a few stir to find shade and relative darkness, but many people
lay, oblivious to the day unfolding above them, perhaps hoping to extend
whatever trip they started the night before.
By 7:30, the city has usually rolled out of bed, at least on
weekdays. By that time, the middle-age Hispanic man, short and strong like my
dad, is usually sweeping the last few cigarette butts off the sidewalk outside
a concert venue that had a sold out show hours earlier, as his adorable
four-year old granddaughter dances around, antsy to go off to preschool.
Buses are buzzing with more frequent stops at that point, delivery
trucks have finished up most of their rounds, and the sidewalks are starting to
fill with bleary-eyed 20-somethings dressed in anything from a three-piece suit
to scrubs or gender-neutral skinnies with a crop top and chunky boots. The common accessory among them all is the steaming latte in their hand.
The hangover is gone around lunchtime. Cured by coffee, a
Bloody Mary and eggs benedict, the neighborhood is back to its bizarre, all
accepting yet still cliquey, “super hip” self. When the sun starts to sink
later on, Capitol Hill is again ready to wear its party pants into the wee hours. The bright summer sunrise inevitably arrives too quickly, and the neighborhood whispers a wish for the cozy blanket of the omnipresent
grey winter sky.
explore.
