It's a parade!

Having my own large collection of canvas and recycled-content shopping bags amassed over the years I like to bag my own things to pack to the top and avoid any wee plastic baggies for keeping the meat to itself. I pack them full and heavy and one of these days I will break myself carrying them (see: stubborn girl stumbling down the parking lot weaving under four max-packed carry-alls and a 10-lb satchel of corn cob kitty litter)but for now it's alright.

I need time at the conveyer belt to prepare and try to get behind someone; perhaps an older woman with a full cart or an older man with six items and a wallet full of grandchildren.

Last night, after leaving work at 4 and running errands, and seeing an apartment, and landing at the food store at 7, I got in line behind a couple with 15 things and a cart- it was the longest line going. Not enough time and not enough room on the belt. I tried to be patient and not breathe like a ball-strung bull at the starting gate. The man wandered off and the woman coughed into her tissue.

Then the woman turned and smiled and said, "My God! How much room does he have to take?Single file???"

And I laughed and let my impatience flow away as she condensed the 15 items her husband had indeed arranged single file, one after the other looking very well behaved, all the way down the belt before wandering off to the car.

and then

soft as dust falling it breaks my heart
a whisper in song
only a word and it all goes black
just whisper the name and i go back

And i know without peeking there's snow on the mountain tips and the air 1000 feet above the sea smells like the back of a freezer. I walked one night in the so so cold the snow flakes intact one atop another edges frost fuzzy ice pictures on my jacket in the lamp light.