I am grumpy. I am grumpy about the parking lot. I am grumpy that I am grumpy about the parking lot. I am grumpy about the leaked motor oil shining iridescently in puddles on the seasonally wet field. I am grumpy about the proposed development a stone’s throw to the north. I am grumpy that the plans have changed and I don’t know why or how. I am grumpy about the flooding. I am grumpy that not even my phone can distract me, that it points my attention to the hundreds of unsheltered humans who have died in the extreme heat. I am grumpy about the heat, that all those people died needlessly. Why did we let it come to that? I am grumpy that nature has been telling us and telling us and is shouting now and still we are not listening. Instead we are putting things off and filling up gas tanks and building more parking lots. I am grumpy.
I feel no good to anyone or anything.
You approach while my attention is on preparing for your arrival. When I turn to see you, the warmth of your presence washes over me, and I return to myself. One by two by one you all arrive, and we arrange ourselves with no beginning or end before collecting gloves and tools and traversing the field to our restoration area. For the length of our time together, while we dig the regrowth and around the edges and haul and spread mulch, I forget that I am grumpy. Being with you is respite. From myself, from the world outside of the space we have created.
For a time, I am not grumpy. I am in the moment with you.