[26] this is really how i think

I saw the sunset as I got off the bus coming home from work. I had expended my entire lunch break - on a day of brilliant sunshine - inside, talking on the phone to my Momma. (Good news! I have a ticket to MI for Christmas.) I wanted to enjoy the last few moments of light, so I went directly to the roof of my building without passing go (no $200, either, sadly). 

The few clouds in the sky were all in the west, turning pink and then scarlet and then lavender above the lights of the city. The first star twinkled, and I wished on it. I'm never sure if I believe in wishing, but it feels good sometimes to throw a little piece of hope out to sparkle in the air. A helicopter took off from a building downtown. I watched it, remembering suddenly how a helicopter came every morning and evening to Tiny Little Town when I was in Southern Sudan.  It landed just over on the airstrip, swooping so loudly over our compound that I thought it was going to crash on my head every single day. I was occasionally in the shower in the mornings when it came. It was the only time I regretted the open-air shower, because I worried that the pilots could see right down in there, if they flew over in just the wrong arc. 

Usually I loved showering on the concrete slab with a few little frogs in the corners. I loved looking up at the blue sky or the clouds or the stars while showering. Many days, it was my favorite moment of the day. I would hang my old clothes on one nail and my new clothes on another. The towel went over the door, and I propped a bar of soap and my shampoo on the wooden frame, halfway up the corrugated metal wall. The water drizzled out of a barrel propped up high. It even had a proper showerhead on the end of the pipe, which got clogged with lime or grime sometimes (due to the use of well water hauled from over by the hospital), but was easily cleaned by a few minutes and a paper clip.

It is, as I have mentioned, very hot in Southern Sudan. It is virtually never too cool for a cold-water shower, and the cool water in the morning is not even invigorating. It's just pleasant, because you are already sweating. 

When I looked around, I realized that I was still in Gone West, a little shivery in the wind under an indigo sky. My phone beeped a message. I picked up my purse and walked back into the warmth.