4th and Court, revisiting

In Des Moines there is this really cool entertainment district called Court Avenue. One one corner is the Randolf Hotel, which Jack Kerouac is said to have stayed at when he penned that Des Moines, Iowa has the prettiest girls in the world.

When I first moved to Des Moines, the girl that was assigned as my new student ambassador, her name was Allie (I think), brought me to Java Joe's on a Wednesday night. It was certainly different that the rest of what I had seen in Des Moines to that point, and my first night out with friends/peers since I had moved to Iowa.

I fell in love. Everything about the place, from the deep circus like colours, the smell of roasting coffee, the goth kids smoking Pall Malls on the sidewalk, bikers roaring up and down the streets, and the live open mic music and poetry bleating from the makeshift stage. Love. Serious love. The kind of love that had me awestruck. No other place I had ever been in my life had felt like the energy and promise that swirled around the small coffee house that night.

And so I returned. I stepped on the stage for open mic night. I fell in love over coffee. I read The Great Gatsby and the Catcher in The Rye and wrote ridiculous essays over the metaphors and meaning in each. I drew pen and ink sketches and filled in the white space with emotional and terrible, really terrible, poetry.

I also found myself exploring other coffee houses, other book stores, other live recitation and music events, but Java Joe's was my gateway to this medium.

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So tonight I am meeting a group of fantastic women, a brave girls club of sorts, for dinner. As I parked in the garage and walked up Court and then 4th, I was struck by how much this place has changed. There are still homeless and in crisis people who spend time in front of the Randolf and the Bail Bonds storefront. The warm perfumey smell of fabric softener clashes with the smell of Asian food and deep fried something, accented by old cigarette smoke, and car exhaust. There seems to be a lot more street traffic than there used to be, but it is also earlier in the evening than I used to show up as a teenager.

Now there are apartments, swanky ones, not just the hotel room scary ones that were here when I was a teen and newly looking for my own place. The farmer's market is one of the best in the country and it fills the district with people and fresh food every weekend. There are more restraunts, more bars, more of everything, yet the modest coffee shop still thrives right in the middle of it all, still holding her identity and charm. Still playing Ani D'Franco and Mazzi Star and roaring up custom coffee drinks while local artists scribble furiously in their sketchbooks. Still standing.

I have come full circle too. Maybe that is why I am drawn to this place again. I have purple and red streaks in my head, have taken up poetry again. I feel very much like that lost girl I was fresh and new to Iowa 20 years ago, both brave and terrified at what the future may hold. So many unknowns.

These last 20 years have been filled with love and laughter, so much that the hardships are mere shadows in memory. That is how life should be after all.