Culturally, the outdoors was not promoted where I grew up. However, my dad made sure we knew what it felt like to be outside, to feel earth even if it was in the middle of the city. I grew up in the 90’s where despite what was happening, our childhood felt good. We played outside until the street lights came on and the neighbors had a close eye on the 30+ kids who on any given day would be terrorizing 19th, 18th and 17th street. At times that was as far as we could go. There were bars, liquor stores, corner stores, and Chinese stores. None brought us any value, but us nor the adults cared. It was survival mode, it was making just enough money so the mortgage was paid, the lights stayed on and food was available. For some reason even with that as our guiding light, life still felt good. The sun was brighter, we saw rainbows often, cookouts, block parties, summer camp, fights, scraped knees. Oh, what a beauty to actually live a childhood of curiosity, to figuring out what dirt taste like without my parents knowing. To have a plethora of friends where randomly if we got into a fight with one, another would be ready to play. In harshness so much light was there and I can remember it now as I sit in this coffee shop in Pasadena writing these words. What happened? Where has the beauty of the world gone now that we have everything at our fingertips. We all miss it, we all yearn to experience a time that although may have been brutal, oddly it was still beautiful.