These Lights

I opened my blog admin panel to find this draft:

Two people in the last week have taken one look at me and commented, "Man, you look TIRED." That's the cleaned-up version without the expletives, screaming caps emphasis the speakers', not mine...

I guess all those all-nighters were finally starting to show.

During that same time, fall was settling in, and then winter, nudged along by spells of cold rain. At the end of one particularly long day, I made a random turn to cut through a street in my neighborhood that I don't normally take and stumbled onto this:

Every tree on the block was lit up. I hadn't checked the forecast that morning and was jogging home eager to get my sopping wet shoes off my feet, but when I turned that corner and looked up, the twinkling tree boughs forming a pretty archway above the full length of the street, it was all so pretty, I stopped in my squeaking tracks to put down my borrowed umbrella and take a photo.

When I returned to the city, I had never felt so solidly right about where I was. I was exactly where I had to be. And wanted to be. Even on that wet street fussing with my camera phone. Even as exhaustion incessantly crept in, it felt right. 

I haven't skipped through this street recently, and in fact, don't actually remember which street it is, but if I have to, I'll walk up and down the gridline streets block by block until I find it again. I will do it because you can't beat twinkly lights against a night sky.