The weather report promised a day of rain and wind and storms on Monday, much to my bike-loving chagrin. I spent the morning locked up at home, dealing with hundreds of emails that could no longer be ignored, and slowly but surely the sun came out. I decided to go with the skies instead of the weather report and head out on the bike to complete some errands like the daredevil I am. I headed up to Hampden which meant a brief ride down the still-new asphalt on upper Charles, and oh, it makes me want all new infrastructure everywhere all the time. I took my right up past Hopkins, the left at the stop sign and past the new constructions, which I’m guessing is a parking lot because isn’t it always a parking lot?, and then a right and right again. My muscles felt good getting their stretch, made that much more pleasurable by the sweet knowledge that there were only 12 emails in my inbox back at home. Ah, sweet on-top-of-things!

The ride home was a quick one, a stop for lunch and groceries, hoping to get in before the storm hit. Nope, no storm, so I took a walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the sunshine and the hint of mugginess that portends summer. I snapped this picture of that perfect sky that a few hours later would be sunderstorming before heading home to catch the much-delayed police briefing about the death of Freddie Gray. I marveled at the tone deafness, the 15 minutes at the front end imploring everyone to stay calm, that we are a community that works together, in spite of the evidence of so many people chased down by cops–that’s not “togetherness” in my book. The mayor, police chief, and deputy in charge of stuff like this took their turns and I was left thinking that these folks believe so hard in procedure and policy that they cannot even hear what they sound like to the rest of us. Internal investigation must be completed before an independent review board can come in and do their own investigation? They cannot even begin to imagine what could possibly have happened that a man running (“running’s not itself a crime,” Batts said, all evidence to the contrary when some people are running) could an hour later have a severed spine, but be patient, be patient, they’re being transparent. Just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s true, and there has to be trust before there is patience, but they can’t hear that, only their own bureaucratic faith. The storm came later, much later, so much rain and wind and lightening, and I felt lucky to have been outside and to be inside then.