about drifting empathy

One morning I cut down a nuisance sapling and pulled a couple of tall, ugly weeds in the alley. Then a guy came by, pulled out a piece of cardboard from between the trash cans, and made himself at home where the weeds had been. Looked like he needed an hour or so to regain some of his senses. I didn't mind much—a lot of people walk by there on Saturdays to go to the farmer's market, but they can just ignore him, which they did. But after he collected the remains of his shattered psyche and metabolized enough of the sunshine pounding in his veins to get on his feet and move on, he left the box there.

 

Such a tiny thing, I'm ashamed I gave it any thought.

about when alley driveway gates went up

Jeremy had his big driveway gate installed after someone broke into his car and stole his golf clubs. His wasn’t the first gate in the alley, but it was a little different because his family lived next door to mom and dad. Every time I was around, I would see their SUV pull in and out, the 8-foot fence open and close, grinding the same, coming or going.

The first time I saw a gate like that in the neighborhood was probably 10 years earlier—on one of the houses in the alley opposite the field belonging to the public elementary school. Is that the one that started it all? Today, those alley driveway gates are everywhere. Whatever neighbors value is stored away safely now, along with whatever value neighbors have.

 

about a search of my own

I look for places to live, and the places leave me disoriented. Empty places. People leaving spaces.

The setting sun's light slips over the trees across the river, and I wonder, Who will leave me a home?

something about leaving

She started feeling a little sentimental as she prepared to check out of the hotel. "I'll never be in here again." A melancholy trickled always, but, in the moments that she inventoried her stuff and looked the room over, the valve opened a tiny bit more. She thought of the city she was in and of how she was unlikely to return because life is too short and there may be other places to go. She would feel this way the times she traveled even while not ever really wanting to come back.