The crowds have dispersed. Several weeks ago, the scene outside my
window was one of people, people, people.
They couldn’t go to work because doing so might spread the coronavirus,
so they stayed home and went out for walks.
During that period I could see that I actually had neighbors, that those
houses up and down the street weren’t just arrangements of lumber but wooden boxes
in which real, live people resided.
But this is California. We expect perfection in the weather. Cloudless skies and seventy-five- degree
temperatures are just fine. But rain
brings on the fear that like metal we might rust, or like sugar we could just
melt away. And heat drives us indoors
where we can inhale deeply from the air conditioning outlets, like an asthmatic
getting a fix from an inhaler.
And this is what happened. A couple days of drizzle flushed the streets
of dust, dogs, and people. The return of
mild weather didn’t last long and was followed by temperatures above the
century mark. Then a few days of cooling
came, then heat again.
Now most everyone seems to be inside. Or maybe they’re back at work. One never knows about these things.
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