Flashes of anger & emotion used to course through me like electricity.  I was frustrated, frantic, & full of this whimsical belief that everybody should automatically respect me for what I have seen.  The good works I have done.  Where I have been, who I have touched, the warmth inside of me for all things alive.

These turned out to be silly affectations at their best.  They were damaging presumptions at their worst.  I have shed them this winter past.

So as I stand on a street corner waiting for the crosswalk to illuminate, I detect a flurry of quick-moving & unhappy vocal patterns from a passing group of fellas.  They are criticizing my wardrobe & physical appearance in an attempt to humiliate me, to lift their own self-esteem at my expense.

But I know something they do not at their tender level of enlightenment.  I know the half-life of the diatoms used to make the reflective signs surrounding us.  I know the deteriorating condition of the asphalt on this road, I have memorized her geography. I am painfully aware of how temporary this place is as the sun dries a slightly more radioactive rainstorm from the gutters of our fair city.  As the echoes of their laughter die in the recesses of marble columns, I can estimate impermanence on a timeline that would humiliate them simply to perceive.

So while they think they have had the last laugh, I chuckle when the light turns green.