It’s early Friday morning and I am sitting at a corner table in a coffee shop near downtown. Peppy indie music floats down from the ceiling level speakers. Periodically, customers enter and exit the shop as the barista works through a line stacked two deep. It will get more busy as the sun rises and commuters fill the streets, taking a detour here out of routine and necessity. Now, it is mostly quiet though, and the music provides a steady stream of inarticulate rhythm. Two men at a table halfway across the room whisper in hushed baritone rumblings. Occasionally, the sloggy whine of the milk aerator blasts a white gargle over the music. Another customer enters, a customer leaves.

Welcome, Friday.

My thoughts whir the same from day to day. Today is another Friday in a river of Fridays, that will one day dump into a sea of eternity. And my life feels like that aerator at times- mostly silent, occasionally a loud blast trying to stir something up for a moment in life, and then back to silence.

Too much existentialism for a Friday morning.

These words I try and pull from my head, from my heart. These dried-up roots. These random lengths of frayed twine. These tired trees.

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun,” Solomon says.

The sun rises, and somewhere here a baby is born. A fire burns. A man pounds on a table top. A woman reads. A thief eyes a home. A circle of believers pray. A wild dog scrounges for food. A young child cries. Lovers embrace. A solitary soul takes his last breath.

And the wind blows. The sea roils and rolls to and fro. Clouds form and fade. The sun flares, particles fly.

And for now, our hearts beat, yours and mine.

My coffee is warm and satisfies my tongue and my mouth and stirs my brain for the day ahead. Servers and customers meet eyes and share words. The music bubbles on overhead.

I am glad to be here, nonetheless.

Welcome, Friday.