Thank You Time

Back home after a week-plus of many miles and it’s one of those times after a blur of people in different cities and states that I am struck by how every single person – the woman helping unpack books, the student picking me up at the hotel, the professor yielding class time for my stories, the people blocking their calendars and arranging their evening to join me and/or the band, the band itself (they carve out large chunks of their personal and professional time in order to ramble with me), the sound techs, the chair-unstackers and re-stackers, the snowplow driver and the librarian who drove me from the airport, the organizers of these events (doing it largely out of love), the people who share a kind word in the signing line, well, the list is of course endless, and so is my use of commas – is part of a play that unfolds over time and distance with each of you hitting your marks and delivering your lines and then I’m back home and moved to say that I notice this, and while the two simple words are inadequate, they are necessary, heartfelt, and gratefully given: Thank you.