The Kirkbride Plan

Out for a walk in Traverse City, to my old house where I'll follow the route by the ancient school down to the riverbank and the gravel path behind the public works building that was a library and is a museum and arts organization now, and the Christian Science Reading Room with its own Little Free Library in front stuffed with pamphlets and Mary Baker Eddy books, then I'll cross the bridge with the solar powered fish counter device on it and head down to the waterfront. This is the walk I take in my imagination when I'm trying to sleep. It lowers my blood pressure and flattens my thoughts, like it did in the evenings here when I needed to relax enough to read and write before bed. I see right away a trench has been cut through the heart of the neighborhood and I cannot cross it on foot.