The windchimes on Cherry Street

People in puffy coats coming up Summer cringed at the wind that blew into their faces, as I crossed their paths and thought about coincidences. The dried out tiny flowers danging from a nearby tree behind a fence reminded me of the loose-leaf, whole-flower chamomile tea that I had found in the kitchen at work earlier today. The sound of a plastic bottle rolling around at the back of the bus mimicked perfectly the one that had bobbled all the way down an Orange line car just a little while before. Earlier in the week, a few days after re-watching I Heart Huckabees for the first time, I realized that I, also, had an African guy coincidence. Two days in a row I had passed him on the first floor hallway at work; one time he had held the door for me, and said hello to someone that was coming in behind me. A thin, young girl that always wears the same black head scarf and waits for the same 5:52 bus as me most days suddenly didn't seem lonely anymore when a smiling, tan-skinned young man came up to her and gave her a hug before getting on a different bus. And then I heard the windchimes on Cherry Street again, after forgetting they were there all winter. The clouds were large and multi-hued--the sun today was only lighting up half the sky--and pin-prick raindrops sprinkled down through the rays. I looked at a little brick path in someone's front yard, remembering the evening when I saw a nonchalant little long-haired cat hop down the porch steps of (what I think must be) his house, prance down the sidewalk a few yards ahead of me, then turn into a gateway a few doors down and follow said narrow, decorative path through the yard and around back. I guessed that he was probably paying a friend a visit.
(Photo from the IslandWood grad program blog: my new favorite dream. They offer a Residency in Environment, Education, and Community, on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle. I plan on visiting in April).