finding the delta

the sidewalk runs east/west towards lake michigan. it is an 82 degree evening at 7:30. the warm air has you wearing swimming trunks and a t-shirt. you cross a bench where an older couple are singing and playing guitar, and everything changes. the light breeze is now heavy with the smell of fish and algae, and it almost immediately yanks your hat off from your head. it rips a beach ball away and pulls it over a pile of rocks, a pier, a barrier, and into the water. the temperature has dropped... 20? 30? degrees. in mere feet travelled, what was once sunny and warm and calm is now cold and harsh and garish. and you think if only it were that easy. if only it were a few steps, a 5 minute walk, a slight movement, and you too could change, you too could have a completely different environment, aesthetic, body, temperature, look, knowledge, experience, something, anything, because it's not that easy, and it takes time, and it's hard to see the future, like it's hard to see the setting sun, swallowed up by the clouds swirling near the horizon, and if there was a god, you'd accuse her of a cheap metaphor, right then and there.