On a cold and rainy winter morning I walk to the post office in downtown Flagstaff. It’s only about a four-block walk from “the Brothel,” which we’ve amiably coined our 123-year-old apartment house located just shy of the “right” side of the tracks. Milky clouds hang low in the gray sky, masking the Peaks just north of town. Streets and sidewalks glisten as though freshly painted with a clear polish; raindrops descend from the awnings of shops and restaurants still asleep. As usual, shady characters loiter near the mission and outside of the hostels. I walk alone on the sidewalk, stepping around puddles and patches of sludgy ice.

Damp cigarette butts and orange peels litter the tracks, which smell of grease and metal. I step over the slick tracks, this “I-Spy” wonderland full of bloated and rusty objects.

Downtown is awakening: shopkeepers step out for last cigarettes before unmasking OPEN signs; it’s difficult to discern between the plumes of smoke and frosty condensation expelled from their mouths. None of them makes eye contact with me; I am invisible to them in the last precious moments before the workday begins. I clutch my letters and stare at the sidewalk, inhaling deep breaths of fresh, damp air, and admire the beautiful decay hidden in the gutters and alleyways.

The post office is unusually still and quiet for a Saturday morning. I admire the vintage post boxes and wonder how many tired, grubby hands have worked their combinations over the years. I collect the usual bills, a package, a catalogue and a bona fide letter from a college friend in anticipation for my walk back through the chilly, wet comfort of this little mountain town I’ve come to call home.

Neo-hippies emerge from beater cars splattered with political bumper stickers; two bleary-eyed Native Americans stumble across Route 66 and San Francisco Street. Both are wearing black athletic pants and faded black hoodies, bloodshot eyes staring through me as we pass on the polished walkway. Two others go separate ways further down the street, one shouting obscenities to no one as the other panhandles a large white man in a blaze orange ski jacket.

A train charges past, its horn loud and abrasive yet comforting. A rush of air washes over my face, my cold cheeks. My thighs burn from the frigid air and exercise as I patiently wait for the train to pass. My senses are alive and I feel refreshed. I grasp my armful of mail, carefully tracing a finger over the brown paper package in anticipation of its surprises.