A light rail car a block away waits at a light stop rain soaked empty streets in an early morning cityscape

I don’t know if I’m going to keep up getting up a half hour earlier than usual on Wednesdays, but it’s made getting in on time more fun and interesting. Figuring out getting where I need to be becomes weirder with every street empty and dark and often either about to rain or just done. Some are pretty much autopilot, and some are no pilot.

The exterior of a library community room with a traffic cone propping open a door and a sign with an arrow directing entrants inside to vote

My relationship to the ballot has changed over time. It’s taken on more weight, even early in the year with the primary process, and so many other people apparently tuned out or mailing it in. Also, I didn’t expect to see people on it that I’d known, gotten emails from or even met in person.

A person riding a skateboard leans forward into a driveway exiting a parking lot and steers into a sidewalk beside a street.

Stretch and breathe and master yourself, because getting out of breath and bent out of shape won’t help you help others. Of course, I say it to remind myself. Of course, I’m going to forget.

Two cream doors with gldd trim in front of a sliding door closet frame

I spent the last week coming down from an unexpected peak with help from a few changes in diet (more when than what, but not much more than usual) and sleep, with exercise as a final missing but necessary component. All these things are going to get traction anew by next weekend with the time change, and we’ll see where things go from there.

A thirty for tall sign advertising multiple retail outlets at a small suburban mall

I could have stayed home, but then I wouldn’t have gotten anything done. After about an hour looking up some new clothes, I pulled the trigger on some items and then went over to the drugstore to pick up a couple of other things for the house. Then back home to dry out, and get ready to return to routine.

A wet dirt path along and underneath a small short grove of trees and plants

The rain never went away, but it was nourishing flora, slowing down traffic and pounding windows and blowing so hard that I could feel wind gusts through closed off glass. Throwing in a couple of striking art exhibits, a critically acclaimed movie and a partial grocery store run made it a better than average day. Having a gumball machine ask me “what is time?” and answering a friend’s question about a song and recovering my wallet and pocket knife were all much more to the good than buying unintentional candy bars and forgetting to score other desired items.

A rainy windshield filters an empty quiet city block stretch on sun early evening.

Just before the street light came on, I thought about what it felt like to be back in the city. I’ve been making it back on certain weekdays, but not to this corner in a while. It wasn’t the same as going by the hospitals in the city where I work weekdays. Maybe it’s my antenna. Maybe it’s something else.

Sunset in clear sky over a mall parking lot with six palms trees and three light poles in the distance.

Sure, it’s going away for a few days, and it’ll feel like longer, but it’ll be back. It’ll be something to remember somatically rather than mentally: pair the walking, the footsteps, the coffee cup with the coffee far too late in the day to do any good, and the warmth of dressing for the chilly office but now being out in public, and call it up once the clouds gather and the drops start falling from the sky and the temperature plummets.

Geography is not a cure, but sometimes it’s a necessary distraction. Call up a corner store for a story, then find yourself walking into the store to satisfy your curiosity and be thorough. Make your way back out to the main drag and catch a ride which u-turns past the last place you remember playing a live gig. Catch a lucky break with a garrulous guy to show off the city of his memories, the mind map against the actual territory, and go forward.

A two-story building at an intersection with street signs displaying different names under sunny skies

All it takes is a little tinkering at the edges of things and an absence of notice, and whoops, suddenly something is wrong, unevenly distributed, concerning enough to dial a phone number and look up Wikipedia entries to learn about. Anyone can play, on an amateur basis if need be, and anyone can get that work, alas.