I’m here in Ames, Iowa this week, staying in a worn room as comfortable as a tattered old bathrobe. Maybe it’s the cool tile floor, the breeze through the open window, the sound of young voices on the street below, cars pushing air lazily aside - any of these things that trigger this hope to swell within me. I catch my breath again. That tug of anticipation in what lies ahead has resurfaced; then I settle back in the feel of this room, singing to myself, then to the world outside this window, thinking thoughts I’ve had years before, yet just now understand.
Tomorrow I go home and start all over again; tonight I simply live in memory.