The forgotten American dream: patience

Mid-way through the afternoon the wind doesn’t show and the sun hangs across the streets in a timeless bit of perpetual Sunday laziness. I wonder down to the little taco stand where I know there’ll be few people and no waiting or impatient customers hurried on by something. These are the afternoons where the morning gets forgotten along the way. How things ended up here is unknown. For a couple of hours, there is nothing going on. Everything just slows to a crawl along the street. The cars are missing for a while, the kids have all gone inside for a break. Everything just seems to pause for a while. In this little slice of time the sun lights up the flat water on the bay, spraying slow sparkles of light through the afternoon. If I could stay right here, sipping my drink, patiently waiting for my tacos – the kind of patient wait that bathes me in calming comfort – I might never need anything else.