Late light on an ordinary street
The hour before dinner, when the brickwork turns the color of tea, is easy to miss if you are already thinking about tomorrow.
I have a short loop I walk on weekdays, the same four streets, past a bakery that closes at five and a yard where someone is almost always watering pots. Nothing about it would hold a visitor’s attention. That is the point: the walk is not for discovering a new place, but for noticing the one I already have.
In mid-October the light arrives late and leaves early, and for twenty minutes it is almost too much — every window lit from the side, leaves the color of a well-used envelope. I used to wait for more dramatic weather. I have learned that the dramatic days are rare, and the ordinary ones, if you keep them, add up to a life.
Tonight a neighbor was carrying groceries in both arms and still managed a nod. The bakery was dark. The pots had been watered. I went home and wrote this down, so that I would not pretend tomorrow that nothing had happened.