A Day at Dilly's Deli

Nickelback is playing at Dilly's Deli at 12:36 on a Thursday. I find a spot at one of the only available checkered tables and pull out my laptop. It acts as a shield, so I don't make awkward eye contact as I sit with my back to the wall.

The employee with a soft-spoken voice tries to announce my bread bowl is ready over the room crowded with voices. She has written my name on the order with an "i" using a heart instead of a dot.

A woman with a collared red dress and black heels sits stiffly in the metal chair across from a man in scrubs and Reebok sneakers. She nods and smiles politely at his animated stories. After 10 minutes, he says, "Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today" and I wonder if he knows the difference between speaking and listening.

A father and son walk in with matching ASU t-shirts and slightly crooked gaits. They both order a large Coke.

The bearded man at the table to my left has pawprint tattoos running up his arm. I wonder if he will go home to those dogs tonight or if they are prints lingering from friend she said goodbye to long ago.

Working men and women rush in and out with brown paper bags of sandwiches to go. On the way out, one man stops to order a root beer float. I hope this addition makes his day a little sweeter.

Four people are staring at their phones in this room, swiping their thumbs across the screens. A man in a black apron sneaks around them to swipe a rag over their tables.

John Denver is playing at 1:05 on a Thursday as a line again begins to form at the counter of Dilly's Deli. I close my laptop. A girl walks by and I call out, "I love your glasses." She turns. We make eye contact and smile. 

Rain in the Desert

 Tonight, I lie on my bed on my stomach, spread across the width of my queen-sized mattress so that my face can feel the breeze of a desert storm from the open window.

It smells like dirt and the neighbor's front porch light glistens in the rain-streaked glass. My phone and book are pushed away as I listen, as if each drop hitting pavement calls out for my undivided attention. A car passes by like a wave. I close my eyes to hear it better. 

I never understood the fascination with ocean waves. Maybe this unexpectedly cool, wet suburban street is my ocean. A steady drip from the roof reminds of my time as a percussionist for middle school band. Keeping time as the music played all around me. 

I try to take a snapshot of this moment. Can you take a auditory snapshot? I had an ear worm all day today. I sang the same line of a Noah Kahan song. Maybe I can hold nature's symphony just like that to play again and again. 

"If you like rain so much, why don't you live in Seattle or Florida?" someone once asked me. But I never loved rain until I met Arizona rain. Not a rain that comes to stay and soaks into the soil and leaves lawns wet. But instead a rain that seems to just be passing through. A friend with a melodic laugh and a wild heart. She brings reprieve from the heat for a moment and then dances away, leaving no trace by morning, or maybe just her muddy prints all over my car.