I am beginning to believe that no one ever really *deserves* the love of another person. It's not something you can be entitled too no matter what you've done, in the same way that you can't *deserve* the vault of the sky, or the curve of light through a raindrop. Instead, someday you just looked up and they were there--gifts and miracles--things that were given to us more than they were ever earned by us.

Outside the rain comes pouring out of the sky onto rooftops, sidewalks, scurrying people with blue umbrellas, comes puddling down onto the blacktop of streets, the wind comes and drives the rain sideways and the branches of locust trees bend and unbend like the waists of graceful dancers at some frenetic dance, then the wind stops, the sun comes out, and the rain stops everywhere except beneath the honey locust trees where a false rain still falls from their heavy leaves and disturbs the surfaces of puddles at their feet. And inside my office environment, the only sign of change is the steady countdown from 9 to 5.