left turn at the road most travelled

I live in the city, close to a vast array of restaurants, bars, stores, specialty shops and every service you could ever need. My commute is over thirty miles and it's frustrating, especially in the evening but I have no desire to live near where I work so I just deal with it. I encounter thousands of vehicles on my way to and fro. All of my kids live close and my neighborhood is more diverse than the other surburban sides of town which are more reflective of white flight and strip malls. Living on the low end of affluence has it's advantages, the goods and services for the elite are available to you as long as you can afford them. I just have to pick my spots and establish priorities which is fine since I don't want it all anyway. I know people who have so much they don't enjoy any one thing enough including that which cost them nothing.

About the time my patience is threadbare as my favorite jeans on my commute home I get to the last major intersection which is only about a mile from my house. At this time of day there will be well over a hundred vehicles sitting at one of the fifteen to twenty stop lights in one of the twenty lanes of traffic waiting their turn to head north, south, east, or west. You can have sex without prematurely ejactulating in the time it takes to get through this intersection.

So close to home and so far to have come.

I turn north, no single turn lanes here, two each in all four directions. One last line of traffic before I bear to another left turn lane, past a beautiful cemetary with massive Sycamore trees with their white peeling bark and halloweenesque limbs, some as large as large trees themselves, reaching out, storm scarred and lightning struck, and then finally, off the beaten path, the road less travelled that shows no sign of life with the cemetary on the left and the funeral home on the right and then the woods and baseball fields of young dreams and a playground for even younger dreams , the road eighteen lanes narrower now than five minutes before, shade laced from sun dappled leaves a different color every day now. You can feel and hear the river breeze now and birds fly to places they can sit before they fly again. Turn right into my neighborhood just after the pedestrian crosswalk, an indicator of who has the right of way here, kids and pets and bikes and joggers and wanderers and gadabouts like me, turn right again at the nature trail that winds through the middle of my addition all the way to the river and then one final circle swirl into the cul de sac-o my existence hitting the garage door opener and planning the sequence of mail retreival or maybe fuck it, it's just junk or a dun anyway, let's go for the clinky chink of ice hitting the glass and two, or three , fingers of freezer frozen kiss vodka and a day earned sigh leaning on the rail of my no traffic allowed green quiet private space place where I stand so still the birds come back to eat having learned I'm friend not foe. The creek babbles and burbles and the leaves fall one at a time, sometimes right through beams of light from a sun as ready to set as I am to sit after the grace of another day.

I wouldn't trade this place for twice the space.