The sky is light blue at the highest part I can see. It gradually lightens toward the horizon, then meets a band of white and gray clouds, nuanced and inconsistent. Below those, a wide smooth band of gray-blue down until the trees and buildings. Far away and far, far away, I see two white water towers, like the one behind the home where I grew up.
Beautiful black birds near and far, big and small, intertwine themselves with all the view I can see. From my vantage, each is wholly jet-black. They are like pure shadow, flitting and swooping through this world, like moving cutouts in the atmosphere revealing the darkness of space beyond it. I imagine they're having fun and enjoying this windy day. I wonder what color they really are.
Huge white clouds sail slowly across the sky, but still quickly enough that I think I can see their movement. Can I? Maybe the invisible wind passes in front of them and they only seem to move, like a shimmer. The more I look, the less I can tell what's happening.
When the winds pick up, everything sways. I hear an empty can tap-dancing its way across the cracked parking lot two stories down. The floodlight, mounted at my level, rattles. The plastic bags spilling out clothes that live on the neighbor's balcony in season and out of season are rustling furiously. My own self sways in the canvas folding chair in which I am bundled and curled. I am thrilled with the unseen force of it. "If I get that job I want, I'm gonna throw a party with the theme of God's goodness," I vow dreamily.
The sun goes away and comes back. It's on my toes again. Warm, not like socks but like a quick, affectionate touch.
I don't know what's coming for me. I could walk out on the wind. My gratitude for this weather is boundless. I can't help but thank the God who created warmth, because of whom I'm not alone as I sit here alone with the world whizzing by in all directions.
When the wind picks up, the rightmost of the two panels atop our dumpster stands at attention. It always falls back down with a bang, no matter how many times it is summoned up.
My text message sound goes off within my apartment, but I don't move. I'm a world apart. I may as well be on the roof. I may as well be floating above the trees. How can this day be February? I've always hated February, but I don't this year.
As I write longhand, I carefully edit out the dashed hopes, the confusion and wondering that catch me in some quiet pauses. They never make it to the page. I don't want to sound whiny or repetitive. We've been over these feelings, myself and I. I skip over the part where I write to console myself it's only been 11 months. Really, less. Maybe 7 months. Depends what you're counting, exactly. I never liked math, in my heart. It hasn't been a year since I began a new way of thinking and thus a brand new life, forged from the raw materials of my old one, but better in every way. Realer. Addicts can celebrate years, months, weeks, or even days sober, as needed. I was addicted to lies. It hasn't been a year. I'm allowed this. I'm on schedule. This is how the story goes, and it's not the end.
There's much too much around me to capture all of it if I spent hours. Dark bare trees block most of the center of my view of the sky. Two on the left are sweatered in flourishing green vines, some of which trail down like ragged chain mail ripped in battle.
The dumpster lid lazily and slowly rises, leaning back for a moment before plunging shut, all in response to some wind I couldn't otherwise hear.
My feet are getting colder and the sun I can barely feel at all. The temperatures are inching back toward February as I sit out here eagerly soaking up the chance to be outside sockless in winter, in the present moment, on this day. I'm so grateful for my balcony.
