AWAY FROM HOME

I'm a little homesick. It's hard to leave one's office one day, pack up and take off again the next to start another intense job. Granted, I've only traveled to Cincinnati and will only be gone for a week, but I'm tired and would like to have some time to come down off a year at work that's been exhausting, particularly emotionally. That's my whine for the day.

So, as I sit outside eating my supper, here are the views I ponder:

Skyscrapers to my left in the center of downtown. As I was walking around Fountain Square just a little while ago, I encountered a poor soul who kept repeating, "All I want is what's mine!! I didn't ask you for anything else.". Obviously infuriated by some injustice in life, he was proclaiming to the Universe that what was his was his!! It just seemed all that could have been his was about to spill out of the torn plastic sack he carried..

Older dilapidated building stare me directly in the face. At some point, they must have housed businesses that have long since floundered..interestingly enough, I'm drawn to their rusted roofs and tattered tar-papered sides. For me, they house more potential for story and/or drama than their more stately, architectures neighbors down the street a couple of blocks. I wonder about the family businesses that supported generations there; do older folks who apprenticed their children still come by to conjure memories of clients and friends? Who inhabits the creaky structures now? Perhaps the man I saw earlier calls one of them home.....

I don't like to be closed in, and I feel somewhat claustrophobic at the moment. Insanely loud music blares from Fountain Square, discouraging me from walking in that direction. We've been warned not to walk in the other direction alone, so here I sit....surrounded by an inner city world that's far away from home, in more ways than mere miles.....