A memory.

A thick-aired, cloudy evening in June. I’m in my kitchen, hot with the stove and summer heat. Seeking relief, I walk out onto the fire escape and lean out over the rail. The wind has picked up with the promise of rain and slams open the screen door behind me. Fat thundering drops begin to splash and lightening flashes hazily in the distance. The trees bow and lean with the wind. The rain is suddenly loud, streaming noisily down the drain, hitting clay flowerpots, plastic chairs, thudding into clothes left out to dry. From somewhere above and out into the night comes the anxious sound of a baby crying. And at that moment, from the brick school across the empty lots, lit up with an evening event, comes the opening strains of Copland’s "Fanfare for the Common Man" through open windows and into the rain. This is my memory: distant thunder, rain, wind, the dull wet sound of traffic below, the sound of a baby’s tears above, and the heralding horns of Copland on a summer night.