Eve

Already tired of being back at work. Lunch? The weather outside is like some scene from an apocalyptic ghost story, all black ice and torrential downpour, but how irresistible the temptation. They are back after weeks away; at last the City fills back up with familiar faces, with dear voices and endless anecdotes. I shuffle in with the crowds to Midtown, navigating treacherous streets full of careless umbrellas ready to take an eye out in the fall and am, as ever, grateful not to be as gray as the suits that surround me. The hours while away as I listen to his stories, catch him up on my own. When he says it's so good to be back because he missed it, it warms me. As though when people love this city, they must love me, too. I will take it. I didn't realize how much I'd missed them, until they were back.

The evening stirs like the last night before school starts in fall. Eager anticipations mix with anxious folding of clothes, packing of bags. And somewhere along my spine, the sense that this is but a soft step in already warm waters, that it is a welcome stone in the building of my chosen path. For one, short moment, the faith that it leads in the right direction.

There's a few crooked turns in its wake.

But the path wouldn't be, without them.