A crowd gathers in an intersection during a street fair in sunny late winter weekend weather

I figured I’d hear that song because when do we gather without singing some version of it, either to each other in jest or in all seriousness and awareness of ceremony? But I hadn’t expected to hear the other song 35 years after the first time, no longer a teen but still in need of its tenor and its advice.

Chain link fencing stands next to a sidewalk over an interstate overpass facing east at sunset on a sunny day

Things are sliding, and so are some people and places. There’s no stake to jab into the ground to hold fast. This shouldn’t be more than annoying. After all, if you can control yourself, you’re ahead of the game and in better shape than others. But some days, it’s more than just annoying, and the next day can’t come soon enough to get it away. Distance is the best perspective for those things.

A bird flitting among flowers near bees in mid morning winter sunlight

A meeting, settling accounts and signing papers in person, as much seasonal as necessary thanks to technological shortcomings, followed by a light matinee and some meaningful loafing and a barrel roll through a novel just in the nick of time based on an old story made new, all too seasonally appropriate and still too soon.

I spent the day moving between buildings where people are trying to figure out to get things done, and headed home with the welcome distraction of music suggested by a coworker, and neighborhood callouts during my drive from a place that isn’t so much a building as it is an archive or a emergent space.

Partly sunny sky with dramatic clouds over a steep wet city street after late morning rain

I think I’m still young and waiting around to get old, and then the streets and the businesses tell me to get off their lawns, and my coworkers tell me what musicians they’re listening to, and I get prompts reminding me of what I was doing on such and such a day, and I hardly know what year it is and which end is up, only that I’m happy to have the city, the job, the moment and the company while it lasts.

A light blue button down collared shirt and red tie with green paisley patterns under a dark wash denim trucker jacket

Words find residence and resonance, encountered, forgotten, reminded, astounded. You can think of a hundred things that would be safer to handle with vulnerable containers like mouths, eyes and brains than arrangements of letters, sounds or phonemes, and that’s before you get into pictures.

Blue sky with gray and white clouds overhead

An all cylinder day, even with a bit of rain coming down every other half hour, and the light felt oddly flat in between either heavy cloud cover or just lost in swaths of rain drifting or hurtling down from above.

The exterior of a large suburban subway station seen through a rain soaked auto windshield shortly before nightfall

The roadway was lost against a field of late afternoon gray, bathed in waves of rain and chopped up spray from windblown vapor. If the car was going to veer out of its lane and into trouble, it should’ve gone and done it. But I got out and off the interstate and then home, and tomorrow I’m back at it.

The exterior of a suburban library with a handicapped parking space near its front entrance

After dropping off and returning a couple of books, I managed to pick up pictures from a drugstore after printing a particular form. Then came an inadvertent tour of a few post office facilities before I found one that would let me handle my business. Now, I wait for several weeks and see if everything falls just right.

A historical society plaque for a city that commemorates the former presence of a blacksmith shop on the exterior wall of a current day hardware store.

Today was about blades and decisions, starting with the fill up of the gas tank and the trip over to the local hardware store and the decision against the multi-tool and the plan to visit the hardware store that led to a replacement of a knife I’ve missed for several months and the purchase of a screwdriver to install kitchen shelves.