Fifteen minutes of my day...

mood: philosophical
music: the hum of the lights
random word: fool

---

I smile to myself, realizing this is the first time I’ve walked through the streets of a city entirely alone. A timely opportunity, as I will be moving in a month to Montevideo, where the university I’ll be attending is roughly 20 times the size of my hometown.

I glance down at my red toenails peeping out from beneath the brown leather straps of my new work shoes. Too bad the heels are so skinny and I haven’t yet broken them in. The balls of my feet, already swollen from a long day at the office, begin to sweat and protest at the prospect of walking a mile and a half uphill in the smoldering heat. It’s not supposed to get this hot until August.

Trying to ignore the blisters, I remind myself not to stop to pick up the penny on the sidewalk and concentrate on looking like I know where I’m going. I can hear my Dad telling me that people who appear to be tourists, women or simply lost are more likely to be preyed upon by criminals on city streets. Granted, it may be broad daylight, but since I basically fit into all three of the aforementioned categories, it can’t hurt to be a little extra cautious.

When did the elastic on this blouse get so stretched out? I’d spent all day at the office pulling the sleeves back up onto my shoulders, but now the sun feels good on my bare skin so I decide to let it go. I catch a glimpse of myself in the window of a hotel on the other side of the road. The left shirt sleeve has slid lower down on my arm than right one, giving me an asymmetrical, almost sexy look. I could be a model for Secret deodorant: cool and confident. My self-assured smile quickly melts into a blush as the bellboy winks at me from across the street and I realize he caught me checking myself out.

I continue on, picking up the pace a bit, only to be stopped short by a glaring red hand: do not walk. I push the pedestrian crossing button repeatedly but it seems to have no effect. Are these things even wired to the traffic lights or do they just exist as a decoy to fool pedestrians into thinking they actually have control over the crazed white-collar drivers who will stop at nothing to beat every car on the road home on a Friday afternoon?

The golden dome on the capitol building glimmers in the sunlight, and I get a catcall in Spanish. It’s like being in Madrid, expect the signs are in English, the capitol is the only old building in sight and the man who whistled at me is wearing a John Deer trucker hat and a thick silver chain with a blinged-out playboy bunny.

I decide to take out my cell phone, in hopes of looking more cosmopolitan. No one has to know that I am checking my voicemail, even though the screen is flashing “no new messages.” The effect is almost instant: no sooner do I click my flip phone shut, than a man approaches me to ask for directions. It hadn’t occurred to me that along with signaling that I was a real city chic, talking on my phone would give people the impression that I was a local and knew my way around. At least that should keep the muggers away. Problem being, I didn’t actually know where anything was. “Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Adrien’s Landing?” the man asked me, peering over the top of his map. I’d always thought that Adrien’s Landing was in Massachusetts. Shit. “I’m sorry, I’m not that familiar with Hartford,” I explain apologetically, conveniently leaving out the fact that I’d lived 20 a mere minutes east of Connecticut’s capitol city my whole life.

I arrive at the bus stop to find it cluttered with men in suits holding briefcases and one woman reading a newspaper. I opt for the small tuft of grass off to the side, where I plop myself down and pull out a crumpled napkin and purple pen. It’s been quite a walk. I decide to jot down my fifteen-minute excursion up Asylum Street in Hartford, Connecticut, in search of the bus stop where my mom had said she’d meet me. It’s always funny when it takes more time to write down what happened than the time it actually took to happen. A lot can happen in fifteen minutes. Especially when those fifteen minutes are spent walking down a city street alone, in a pink skirt, high heels and a shirt that’s falling down without a clear idea of where exactly it is you’re headed.

A lot can happen in fifteen minutes. Even more can happen in a year. Especially when the city you’re walking through is not the capitol of the suburban state known as Connecticut but rather the capitol of an entire country. A country on a different continent where the signs are all in Spanish and the coins on the sidewalk aren’t pennies. I shudder at the thought of someone asking me for directions in Montevideo and wonder if I’ll get catcalls in English.