Out on a walk with Bruno, maybe the last one here for a long time. The past few days have been a blur of packing, and contractors and sweating details, like: which day will the movers be coming? Last night, I washed the screens and drink beer while the fireflies came out and finished while there was still light in the sky at 9:30. Then even more packing, the closets upstairs while Andi and I listened to American Utopia. Framily came over on Sunday, along with the neighbors and like so many of the days lately, it was gorgeous. It was so good to see everybody there relaxing, just like always, the easy reconnection even if we hadn’t seen each other together since the before times, maybe even since New Year’s Eve? Except there was no Mia then, the smiliest and most chill of all Covid babies. John and Al with the surprise visit, all the way from Chicago, stories about being in a new place and the disappointment of living in a neighborhood where everything was still mostly closed. James and Ryan Sanderson sharing stories of Saginaw women, Dan and Laura the same thankfully and Charlie and Lucy, kids playing with neighbor kids, spying on the adults, taking turns using the hammock as a swing.
The nice thing about the movers flaking today was the trip I got to take with Natalie to get carry out Mani for dinner tonight, tunes playing through open Westy windows. When I was cleaning up the yard for party Sunday, I thought, ‘this is it, times up, that’s all what I’ve been able to get done these many years,’ and it’s the same with Natalie. Fully on her own, nothing more needs saying. Though that didn’t stop me from trying again tonight to tell her how much I love her.
Chris Bell's Journalismo 