Constructing/deconstructing in the neighborhood

We live in an old building in West Philly that used to be called The Ivan. And in the stairway, there are brick window-shapes all filled in with concrete blocks. They've always seemed mysterious to me - why are there or were there windows into the stairwell? Yesterday C and I were exploring the back side of the building and I saw this double-bricked window on the first floor. The careful art of filling in what was a window.

We live along the trolley track - here's the spiderweb of deconstructing the pavement around the tracks in order to pour it again in a nice, smooth street.


They knocked down an old big house that was next to a big community garden. I'm not sure what's going to go on the two lots now, but for a short while there were these constructions in the midst of the deconstructed house. Love it. They remind me of the cairns that I've seen all around the world, built by a friend near a river in Montana, built by an artist along the coast in Vancouver, built and left at the tops of hills all over.

I love my neighborhood.

Rainy spring days

I was almost to my front door on my way home from work when I saw this duck. Thinking it was a rubber ducky left out in the rain, I tried to pick it up. But it slipped from my fingers, leaving a sticky yellow sugar-film on my fingers. Poor lost peep! Melting in the rain.

Spring only happens because of rain - it makes everything grow and be green. I get that. But still, rainy-all-day days are so hard when I'm trying to emerge from winter into my sunshinier self.