Well I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking
These days
These days--
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you
And all the times I had the chance to

Opening line from Jackson Browne's fine tuned called "These Days".

Last night was another quiet one in the neighborhood that I call home. With that in mind and in an attempt to follow the most recent set of doctors orders that have unfortunately come my way, I decided to take a little stroll around the grounds. It's amazing what you see when you really look.

I guess it's not too often that people fall in love with a neighborhood. These days, people seem to think of houses and property as some type of investment that will one day pay them returns and fatten their wallets and bank accounts. People seem to come and go like the drifting of the tides, chasing jobs or bigger and better houses. The footprints they leave in the sand tend to shift and soon washed back into the ocean only to be re-formed or reincarnated in another place not too far away. It all seems so...transient.

I think we get paid back in terms that are much more important and that you can't put a dollar figure on.

I love walking up my block. There's the quiet of the trees that offer up a blanket of dancing shadows when the streetlights come on and when the wind hits them just right. There's the huge pine tree right across the street from me that shields the moon for awhile as it makes its way across the nighttime sky. It bends and bows in the wind and I'm always worried that one day the storm that has its name on it will come calling and I'll find it bent and broken on the ground. Still though, it stands its lonely vigil.

There's another tree at the end of the block, I don't know what hell it is but it drops its berries that stain the sidewalk a deep purple and the kids use those same berries to make magic potions that either cast a spell your way or cure whatever is ailing you.

There's a pear tree that sheds its fruit way too early and the droppings look broken and lost before being devoured by birds and racoons and recycled the way mother nature intended.

As I walk the walk, I noticed the shadows between the houses that each contain their own little secrets and stories. The glow of the television and the glare of the porch light combine to cast an eerie sort of feeling when everything is quiet.

I'll keep on moving
Things are bound to be improving
These days
One of these days--
These days I sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten
My friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them

I wish I had a better story to tell, something ala Desperate Housewives bursting with mystery, intrigue and suspense. As far as I know, where I live, all of the husbands and wives are faithful to each other. Nobody works for the FBI or the CIA or is an astronaut or a professional athlete or anything like that. Our forays into the world of acting are more likely to be school plays or a dinner theater every now and then.

I watched my neighbors kid grow up. She's maybe seven or eight now, I forget. When I first moved in, she had a tube sticking out of her stomach because something was really wrong with her digestive system. Today, six years later, she climbs all of those trees that I talked about earlier to heights that nobody would ever imagine in their wildest of dreams.

Basically, we're all a bunch of nice people trying to do nice things in our nice little corner of our nice little world. Somewhere along the line, I'm guessing that we've all got one of these kind of places somewhere either in the present or tucked away in our memories.

As for me, I just simply love the place and the people. While I'm quite sure it ain't heaven, it sure is a slice of home.

And that ain't so bad, is it?

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