21 March

1995, 2010, 2011
The garbage truck lunges into the parking lot across the street, lurches to a halt, beeps the first three notes of “Für Elise,” and backs up. It huffs and shudders as it hulks in a corner dancing with the dumpster, flinging its awkward partner high into the air, into an instant of motionlessness at the zenith, then down again with a thud. I’m thinking of a friend who has been using the words “writing” and “dumpster” in the same sentence lately, marveling that there is only one act in my life I regret: gently placing the journals that kept me company through my teenage turmoil into another dumpster, watching out another window as another garbage truck spirited them away, nearly forty years ago. I’m just as glad when the dance ends and the truck hurtles off in search of its next partner, and I turn back to today’s words.