To believe in this living...

Opposite Direction is playing in the corner it's half-time the Ravens are up and Jotto's on her way to meet dad and I for half-price pubgrup and orange crushes for them. They are Sue and Rich's favorite a talented band that plays mostly 70's covers. Last summer they were here listening to the music every single Sunday. John Prine is on right now. My heart tweaks, I look out the zipped-up plastic window-side at the harbor, the big local fishing boats, the seagulls fighting just above the water of the bay. It is perfect blue and gold out. The kind of day that makes people just stare wistfully at the sea. It's November in West Ocean City and when the sunlight goes low and yellow across the dusk sky I walk to the top of the street past the fish hauls and wharf boats to where you can look directly across the water to the inlet, the roller coaster and water tower of downtown each high on the horizon, and I take pictures in my favorite light of the day. It's cold out, my hands get so cold I cant feel my fingers walking back to Harborside to meet dad.

My cousin Timmy turned 21 here, Sean and Jamie and some of us spent the Sunday after they got engaged here, two Christmas' ago Seanie when she walked to the ladies room sat at these exact highboys and told me he was going to ask Jame to marry him. We told her we were crying about our Pappaw when she came back.

It's nice, these little places we find ourselves when we happen to find ourselves "in-between." Jotto and I sit at the corner and watch enough of the 4th quarter together to know that the Ravens are going to win, then she leaves to get her son. I happily agree to help her paint her new apartment later this week and yet again, as I hug her to leave, this feeling of absolute gratitude washes through me. This sense of utter thankfulness that is translating today as satisfaction, just simple in-moment satisfaction, for the good things that exist in my life. It's the same exact way I feel looking out the window, listening to Sue and Rich's favorite band cover John Prine. When she leaves dad grabs my arm and gushes O sis! I love this song. It's Ventura Highway. We turn on our stools, rest our backs against the bar and jam with the band. I am smiling, not wildly happy or sad, just smiling. Content with me and dad, the outside water and light, the music, with what is...