about a sunrise in July

The sunrise set alight the purring strip of river reaching across to me from the far banks. I felt as though I had for the first time in years the patient attention of some beautiful stranger. But the orange was, I knew, mistaken about me and very soon to pass, and the next week would resume in the bright blur of faces on sidewalks and the dark reluctance of the few fading hours of breathing room inside at night.

about a sunny winter day in St. Louis

Try to recognize the city's constancy. Mortar, red brick; work, manufacturing, beer; centered, unswept; the seam of the nation's identity. (Blight, represented by vacant, deteriorating husks in some sections, yes; but, even there, where history has paused, one can identify with the condemned.) Remember driving down Chouteau one February morning, old red-brick buildings on your right, and how rusted-out gutters, flecked in sea green, plunged down from the rooftops to lie shedding in time's gardens of grit and debris.


Note: Also remember the colors of the changing Maples on X Street, next to the house; Broadway's beautiful industry buildings (never could figure out if people were actually working there); mothers walking kids to the school buses on Chippewa; and smelling bread while walking to the front gate on a chilly day.

nothing (inf.)

I missed the exit and ended up having to loop around the collision course.

Some Other Time

about dragging

about how everyone is so nice

When you move somewhere new, you might find a lot of the people there are nice. This is because you are more likely to ask people for help and information and, naturally, they oblige best they can. Where you're from, you rarely had to ask people for help because you knew the area, the weather patterns and expectations, the laws and ordinances, and so on. So people there were just people you had to share the city with. Your new neighbors are people you try to get along with.