Manchester

It’s raining this morning in Manchester as I walk the mile or so to the University. The city is waking up. I pass groups of men with reflective vests and hard hats, women in business wear. Young people laden with backpacks huddle around the Starbucks. Cyclists weave between delivery trucks. A jogger splashes me as he runs through a puddle. I’m struck by both the sameness and the difference in how people live their lives here and at home. The familiarity is comforting, the strangeness exhilarating.