A Measure

This town has decided to be beautiful for a while.

I'm sure it doesn't bode well when a post begins with a reflection on the weather, but I make no apologies. I'm pleased that I noticed.

My drive home from MCC takes me past an elementary school playground where children fight and frolic behind a chain-link fence with the words, "Build Peace" weaved in with colored ribbons. Today, I saw a group of them running excitedly out to the field, each clutching the outer edge of a circus-colored parachute. A teacher plodded after them, looking as if she hadn't the energy to hold her whistle up much longer. The parachute bubbled madly as the children began to flap their ends up and down and up and down, faster and faster until I half-expected them to rise completely off the ground and catch a slipstream to some fantastic world. They may have, for all I know. I was just driving by and only saw them for a few seconds.

I turned down one of the next streets, past the house where a little girl gets dropped off from school by her bus. I don't often see her arriving home, but I usually notice because she screams and cries and yells and falls on the ground and refuses to get up.

Apparently, all that separates Heaven and Hell are a couple of blocks and a chain-link fence decorated with faded ribbon.