#universal truth

On our way back home 3 hours later, walking up the alleyway (city schlepping), there’s now like 5 or 6 and they’re working away, digging a trench next to this foundation and I think clearing the top layer of soil of anything that’s been dumped there in the last 200 years like bricks or cement fencepost anchors or old rotten linoleum. It can be hard ass work, and these guys all looked like the exact type of guy you’d hire to dig in the dirt by hand on a weekend morning, scraggly goatees, ogre bikers, pasta sauce-stained tank tops, faded Taz tattoos. None of which is a judgement, they were all friendly, I’m just trying to say they all looked kinda gnarly, especially after working in the durty durt all morning.

As we got closer, I saw the dusty boombox propped up on brick halfwall that was blasting their tuneage as they worked. And reader, when I tell you that when we got close enough for me to figure out they were listening Sade, and had been listening to Sade, a whole CD or maybe even a tape-the boombox was that dusty-and not just pop on the radio but specifically chose Sade, loud enough for everyone on the block to hear, please understand that my soul legit soared! The juxtaposition between what these rough-ass grunts looked like and the smooth yet upbeat music they’d proudly chosen to keep their own spirits lifted during their labors. I liiiiiiiive for that kind of cognitive dissonance and upset expectations in my life. “Yard’s lookin good.” “Yup.”