Some mornings when I wake up I can look out the window of my apartment and view the neighborhood.
In the South, there are certain things you take for granted in the summer and now that it is May, the heat and humidity is part of that. It leaves every street and sidewalk damp overnight, even if it did not rain at all. The best gauge for how wet it really is to look at sidewalks that are covered by shade trees. Those parts that are covered, or partially covered will look white and dry and let you know that even though it is starting out as a foggy grey day, it didn’t really rain much overnight and things are just about normal.
These blocks of covered walkway are up and down the area- and dog walkers obviously spend time there as well- because it is a good neutral site for the pets to do what my Grandmother called their “outside business. “
It is such a small thing- the ordinary traffic of cars and people, the intermittent noises of morning and this checkerboard of rectangles, but it is reassuring to see all of the regular parts of life continuing in a world where regular is in short supply.