I make my money on the streets of Denver, a performer trying to earn enough "by donation" to pay what small bills I have, and doing this day in, day out, block by fulsome block you can't help but get a sense of the seasons. October's long passed, nights are longer lasting, and Autumn is a jolt of desperation.
There's a sullen resistance here to the gravity it hints at, sweaters and scarves anticipating biting cold, thoughts turning indoors and wondering about cabin fever this year. For the men and women and often children I affectionately call hobos - the train kids, the gutter punks, the professional hitch hikers, the generally wandering - it's obviously time to start going their kaleidoscopic ways: Santa Fe, Austin, some to Florida, but almost always towards the equator from Denver.
The people without means who stay behind to face the rush and sink and near drowning of Colorado cold and winter needs are either brave or truly have no other choice, because in the coming months, Denver would be uninhabitable were it not for soup kitchens and shelters, lines stretching impossibly long, and longer every day. But Denver, for all that, is lucky.
I talk to a houseless friend of mine, Skyler. He tells me that compared to other places, the Mile High City is well off with spots to get food. "The shelter I stay at always has breakfast," he says, "oatmeal or eggs or something, and then there's a few places around here you can go gestures all around for lunch and dinner."
"Really - " he stresses this flatly as a math equation recited from heart - "the hard part is getting a good night's sleep." I guess at the very least that means one less thing to think of.
I don't bring this up because I want to guilt you into giving, nor am I asking you to take stock of what you're thankful of. I simply submit a question:
Can you do one wholly without the other?
Devan Kingsford is now our reporter on the ground covering stories about people and life in Denver.