Train in the Distance

The sound of a marching band blasts through the mid-morning air, bouncing off the neighbors’ garages. An insistent train whistle sounds its required alarm in the near distance. A beat up, muffler-less, sub-compact barely slows and then belches through the intersection, ignoring the stop signs. Peanut click-click-clicks across the kitchen floor, turning in agitated little circles, whining for a walk.

Meanwhile, David an Trinity are on each other’s nerves, snipping and sniping at each other in a register that makes Sarah Palin sound like Greta Garbo.

Eddie finds his way into my office and begins digging at a cardboard box seemingly without any intention of finally settling in. It’s all about the clawing.

I can’t hear birds for the voice inside my head that keeps listing all the things that need to get done: yardwork, laundry, shopping, grading, reports, proposals…

And so I go outside and start to pull the weeds that have taken over our driveway. The marching bands continue in the background, but the satisfying “rip” and “pop” of roots giving way joins in and suddenly I feel a little better.

Not everybody loves a sound of the train in the distance. Sometimes where you are right now, as maddening as it can be, it right where you need to be.