It’s a little after noon. The train is late and so is a rider. The festival grounds are two hours away. The station is a twenty minute bike ride from home.
It’s cool, not quite cold. The air is wet and heavy but not burdensome. A damp towel on a perfectly sunkissed day at the beach.
The man at the station says the train don’t run on the weekend. No sir, I’m not here for the local train. I’m headed to Tampa. He points to a bike rack with the defensive air of someone who got a stereotype wrong and is halfway trying to save face.
Seat 54. The lady on the aisle says baby and sweetie and feels like she’s the one inconveniencing.
Somebody loaned a paperback but even one sentence is too tough to process.
Dense woods
A graveyard for automobiles
Kids fishing a retention pond
Tiny county post office
Feet won’t sit still more than a couple of beats. The lady tells her phone how much longer it has to wait. Intercom crackles. Fifteen? Fifty minutes?
Cows grazing
Another train
An egret wading
Turtles sunning
This is Florida? This land that’s been home for over thirty years? Stranger in wildly familiar territory.
An osprey carrying its catch
Tracy McGrady Gymnasium
An Indonesian flag
Kids waving at the train
Nothing unfamiliar, yet everything making its debut.
A sign for Ybor City snaps reality back into focus. The festival awaits. So do Emma and Rose, Josh and Stacy, JW and Mary Margaret, De La Soul, Brandi Carlile, and Edan Archer.
The Hillsborough River
Ottoman-inspired spires
A bookshelf drunk with Vonnegut
Air mattress and a rescue cat
Edan Archer is a popular lady. She just won over the noon to 2:30 crowd- the folks who got there early. The ones there for a day of music. The sober and soberish ones. She’s ready to talk about depression, alcohol, the love of a good boy, the way it feels when they leave.
Jeans are warm in the sun. Might need a light jacket in the shade. The air feels like it's made of helium. So do the corners of your cheeks.
De La Soul makes a substitution. “You mean Talib, lyrics stick to your rib?” Questions, but no complaints. Classic after classic. Maybe half the crowd knows half the songs. No matter. Quality translates and transcends.
Rival Sons. Lead singer dressed like Jim James circa 2004. White jumpsuit and strut. Moxie for months.
Brandi Carlile. Tears and smiles. Lumps and palpitations. A clinic in connection.
Morning coffee
Finally reading the book
Breakfast pizza
Sunday coming down
Polaroid Emma took
Rusted shipping containers
Pontoons without a boat
Cemetery adjacent to a factory
Daylight savings skies
Comin’ home
