I’m driving home from the grocery store. A Friday routine—after the gym but before throwing my sheets in the laundry.

Rain is falling in steady sheets. Some streets are already flooded or flooding because the Fall leaves blown into the street instead of being raked and bagged are clogging the sewers. I’m careful to slow down, making sure nobody’s walking nearby as I drive through, a wide wave of water soaking the sidewalk.

Click of my turn signal, go right. Briefly glance at my kid’s old elementary school, then a left turn. Cars parked on both sides of a slim street make passing oncoming travelers a lesson in patience. Some speed past barely moving over, others mirror my own caution.

Brief sit at a red light before heading straight, past the park Ben and I used to visit during the summer, fish ponds and water features and a large wooden climbing structure where I remember him asking me to make a video of him teaching people how to slide down a pole.

Another red light.

Bakers are in what was once an ice cream shop now turned ice cream shop slash baked goods and other homemade treats. I appreciate the vision, but in my heart, I want just the ice cream shop back.

I’m off again. A church on the south side of the street has a little free pantry with a sign that scolds people, telling them they can only take three items per day. I always wonder how someone who’s hungry and has kids to feed, for example, feels about a god who monitors how they access help.

I know church leaders would explain to me that they need enough for everyone.

Quick left turn, then a quick right turn onto my street.

A person with a rain poncho is in an intersection walking from corner sewer to corner sewer trying to work out how he might get them unplugged and the water flowing without getting his tennis shoes soaked.

I don’t think it’s possible.

Under the train tracks to a stop light at the corner. The restaurant that sits there changed hands a few years ago. The new owners installed a love fridge people (try to) stock with food. Some of the locally owned restaurants drop stuff off, too.

Across the street, people are lining up for the weekly food pantry distribution, umbrellas up against the still steady rain.

The light turns green.

I’m hoping for a spot close to home so I don’t have to carry the heavy grocery bags too far. Passing the pantry, I think to myself something I’ve thought probably no less than 10 times before: I should grab some pizzas and set up a table so folks waiting can have something to eat.

Or, maybe some coffee and doughnuts. Today’s distribution is happening earlier in the morning.

I back into a spot by the old firehouse, just up the street from my front gate. Pop the trunk, fish in my pocket for my keys, close the trunk with two bags strung from my left arm and the heaviest in my right.

I glance at the pantry line, now up to the corner I just left, everyone hugging the wall to stay as dry as possible.

Less thinking about what you could do, Michelle.

More doing.

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