Sunday, December 14, 2003

When was the last time you savored a sense of place, gentle reader? I got a pleasant serving of it as I brushed snow off my car in the dead of night. 1:30 AM, the witching hour: the confluence of snow, quiet, and the click-clack of a traffic light served as a comforting comma to an evening of fine company. There was something eminently pleasurable about the there-ness of it all, and it’s a feeling I haven’t felt in months. I am having trouble explaining this to you, dear reader, but I am trying.

For starters, you know–you know you’ll only be here for a year, two years, and then there will be uncertainty–and there is contentment in knowing. There is a feeling of transience, but there is also a feeling of being richly rooted.

How Things Were and How Things Are bumped into each other on a tidy street corner. Stopped. Talked. Wondered. And by happy coincidence realized that they could switch parkas, trade scarves, and no one would be the wiser, at least for a little while. The exchange is made, they part ways, and the night draws on.