I've been feeling a little bit more relaxed lately. A few days ago, I think, when I was at the height of my anxiousness, I saw the moon low on the horizon over the onion fields. It was such a clear sky that you could see the dark, unlit portion of the moon, not just the illuminated crescent. I don't know what it was about that sight, but it warmed me a little, and took away some of my unease.

On the bus ride yesterday, I was sitting in front of a pair of vagabonds hoping to make their way to the mission shelter in Oxnard in time for dinner. They waxed poetic about having seconds, about having ice cream, that sort of thing, with the wonder of a child before Thanksgiving. The woman had a Bostonian accent, and spoke about how she was going to stop drinking and clean up the wreckage of her past. The man, with a voice of a man who smoked too much, acknowledged it, and also spoke about how he wanted to visit his son. I was sitting in front of Lois from Family Guy and Tom Waits, road dogs.

Another passanger might have viewed (or heard) them with disdain, as their voices were relatively loud, but I thought about something I might have heard from Easterbrook, thought I'm not quite able to find the source exactly: life is so short and pleasures are so rare. Hell, they'd probably get better food at the shelter than I would at furlough.