Shadows

It was a sunny, warmish day after weeks of cold gray soggy wetness, so I dragged myself out of bed and over to Sue’s for a couple of hours, and she drove us up to Rocky Butte for some fresh air. We thought everybody else would be watching the Super Bowl and we’d have the place to ourselves, but we found joyous young people clambering all over the rocks, monuments, and walls, hooting cheerfully and taking pictures of each other. Long shadows stretched westward toward the hills and the end of the day, toward the end of our time together. 

Home again and alone, I'm morose and limp, flattened by the virus that has colonized my head. It's only a cold, I whisper at myself with some annoyance. It's trivial. Pull yourself together.