It’s my birthday again.

I’m home, having taken the day off in what seems to be turning into an annual tradition for me. Outside the sky is low and dark, the color of a deep bruise, and a hard rain is threatening. I can hear backup alarms on the heavy machines across the street; they sound  frantic, like they’re trying to beat the oncoming storm as they crush and grind and rearrange the landscape I’ve literally known my entire life. The image strikes me as profound in some way… but perhaps I’m just being a drama queen about notching off another year, same as always.

A million miles goes by in the blink of an eye
And so I cannot try to slow time down
And years are made of sand slipping through my hands
Even faster than the speed of sound

— Mary Chapin Carpenter, “The Dreaming Road”