Where I'm Coming From, with Sun and Promise

Sleeping off the majority of the night before didn't leave him feeling clean and fresh, like he expected to feel today.

He set off on his white Azuki bicycle, with dented pedals and toe baskets. Coasting down the hills of NE Portland, his thoughts lay in the nebulous future of the next school year.

Arriving at school less than an hour later -- after grunting and panting over hills, bridges and lacadasical drivers who stood in the middle of the bike lanes downtown. Looking up at the skyscrapers, they'd marvel at the heights while not noticing the bespectacled cyclist that laboriously approached -- he pulled into his Scottish Literature class ready to discuss the panglossian blur of fiction and reality. They had just discussed the merits of Gray'sLanarkand were currently devouring Welsh's The Acid House. The man was spot-on in the dialogue department, but did not have the stuff of the masters.

Even though hed spent more time laughing lately, mostly due to a sister and brother-in-law who recently gave birth to their first, a new job was to start next week, and the paperwork was piling up: Certification, transcript requests, his desk piled high with items tossed asunder since last summer and beyond.

But for now he'd take the hint of Fall in the rides home, the azure in the crisp air, sailing down the East Bank Esplanade, the enormity of downtown unveiling itself to him as a trusted ally.

In town he had found himself, nursed his way back home, to the wife who love him, the cats who coated his life in fur, and the promise of tomorrow.

For now at least, it was enough.