A CRUSHED COFFEE CUP WAS MY FRIEND.
A flattened cup looks up from pavement. My favorite tree, a parked taxi, and the white-lined lane frame it — haughty attendants would charge a princely sum to see it at the Met but from the living room window I view at leisure, free.
Someone's trash, to me picturesque, has beige fallen leaves around it. Mustard and milk-hued lines embrace the corporate brand's brown background. As Galileo gazed at stars, I'd need a telescope to name it.
I prefer my window's distance and, with glasses off, an impressionist painting's affect. The hazy sight suits meditation. The logo would prod rude thoughts of capitalism.
Measured breathing calms me and with UPS and FedEx trucks safely passing, the cup is peaceful, too.
A black SUV's right tires nail it. Why drive so fast on Saturday?
Human actions abound. Far side Russian friends sing lullabies, lifting strollers toward their door. “I'll give you a hundred ten since you did extra work,” a hefty white man leaning through a near car’s window confides.
A shopping cart rattles across sidewalk cracks beneath me but the steep angle hides its owner. Winds loft leaves. Branches wave unseen at neighbors' common tasks.
Household chores happen on weekends but the pandemic makes routines a balm for anxiety at our inability to forsee its end.
Trump thrust it at us. Biden alone won't save us.
Moses won't reach the promised land, Deutoronomy declares in this week's Torah portion. Prayers for a Messiah now seem pointless but we have, from God, free will.
Can we transcend fear and division, commit ourselves to the mask-wearing, hand-washing guidelines, keep distant and reduce the threat, or is our new normal the selfish flaunting of what helps us?
Naked faces of folks complacent in summer are constant in fall. The cup, meanwhile, has gone.
I joined Sharon to stroll around the block, retrieving laundry, mailing get well cards, but saw blank pavement space when I planned the cup's picture at home.
On the street searching, I gaze down the road or crouch under cars till wind-tossed, leaf-shielded, cup hails me between curb and cab.
Finding it moved me, for when I don't write I get restless, discordant words mind-clogging like a new jigsaw puzzle's pieces spilling.
My prose most often treats the pandemic, policing and politics but “life's realities are most truly seen in everyday things and actions,” a Zen tenet says.
The crushed coffee cup shared that unexpected insight, prompting my notice and story. It lies at rest, its purpose served.
May those leaves protect it.
Leaves comfort cup, its purpose served.