The history of things

I stood in the parking lot this evening and pondered the history of things. I’ve been doing this a lot recently.

It was a pretty ugly parking lot.

Pretty ugly.

A sea of asphalt. The 80s era office building gave new meaning to the word “looming.” Death stare.

I brought a tuna wrap in my backpack. I thought I’d kick it in a field somewhere along the trolley trail. I hopped on my bike, headed for Hank Dietle’s Tavern, a fucking weird place plucked out of somewhere in Texas and placed in Rockville, Maryland — the city that shows up when you Google “basic suburb.”

No offense, Rockville.

And I mean that. I saw you tonight.

I stood there in the parking lot looking around — I hadn’t found a picturesque field to enjoy my tuna wrap and sit cross-legged with my journal.

Instead, I ate here, standing next to my chained-up bike. And I looked, and I thought of the history of things.

I looked at the looming office building. I thought about the fact that, by now, someone who worked on that building — an architect or tradesperson — had, presumably, died. And they probably pondered their life’s work, and thought about that building.

A fence post to my right was leaning, just a few degrees from vertical. At some point, that post used to be straight, I assume. Whether by the slow impact of gravity, or 1 or 100 extreme weather events, that post had fallen out of alignment.

Or maybe someone just hit it with a car.

The window on the tavern had its border painted a bold green. Someone, at some “now” in the past, had stood outside and painted that. 5 years ago? 20?

A crop of 50-foot trees, probably oak or maple, stood in the distance, their leaves energetically and rhythmically moving like frantic ants. None of those leaves were there 12 months ago.

I looked over at some nearby pines. I ask Siri what the lifespan of a pine needle is. Of course, Siri misinterprets the question and tells me 500+ years. The real answer is 3-4 years, depending on the pine species.

I finish my tuna wrap and head into Hank’s.

I drink a local beer and hang out with Neal, a 68-year-old harmonica-player. He was in a band for 10 years once, he says. “You start to know everything your bandmate is going to do before they even do it. That’s really special.”

That takes a lot of watching and being. That’s history.