I stepped off the sidewalk to allow the cruise ship tourist throng to pass. Rather than meet their eyes, I stared at my sneakers and how the blue hints in the cobblestone streets matched the piping of my kicks.

There’s not much room on the streets and sidewalks of Old San Juan. It’s a place laid out by amazingly enlightened urban planners who didn’t know how to design for the scale of anything other than humans and a horse or buggy.

The stucco and paint wall of houses, each touching the next as if they were strung on a necklace, runs in an arc out of my line of site. I see some laundry draped over the line, the crisp line of freshly-laundered sheets sparking against a blue sky.

Standing here, despite the horde of the flip flop posse, I felt something impossible in Atlanta.

I felt like a human.

The modern American city, with few exceptions, is so focused on the scale necessary for the efficient and profuse operation of motor vehicles that one feels out of place maneuvering on foot. Taking a walk down Buford Highway, or trying to cross Memorial Drive makes one believe it is something one shouldn’t be trying to do.

I just want to feel human once in a while…