Entry for 6/13

I'm off work early and it's raining as I walk home. Snails leave slimy trails across sidewalks as they migrate en masse to greener pastures, and I pick a few of them up from the concrete as I go so they don't get crushed into a shell-y goo smear beneath the shoe of whoever comes after me. It's nice out; cool, damp, and dark despite the early hour. Traffic is heavy on the main streets, but cars are few and far between on the winding route I've chosen to take through the neighborhoods between my work and home. It's the kind of quiet atmosphere where I can convince myself I'm on a visit in California walking around Hollywood instead of meandering down Utah side streets. Utah was always supposed to be temporary.

I take a deep breath. It's nice that I don't have to chew the air before I inhale it; I love how clean everything is during a storm. Crisp. A different world. I know the rain will make the weeds in my garden go nuts, and I look forward to how my backyard will become a small patch of wilderness in the midst of an orderly urban sprawl. From time to time I catch my neighbor weeding my front flower bed; I think it bothers him when things aren't neat and tidy (he mows my lawn too - trying to lead by example). I don't trouble myself. I like it overgrown, like the wild gardens back west. I might over romanticize it, but I don't care. I've been far away from it for too long, and I miss it desperately.

I go in through the back, and no one is home, so I throw open windows to let in the storm and keep pretending I'm seven hundred miles away.