On my way to a bone-chilling soccer game, I stopped by the side of the road to snap this photo. Harvest helpers? Essential workers? I hardly cared — a nice sign on a backroad in the midst of so much nasty rhetoric. Maybe simply a thank you to the universe.

While I huddled in my coat at the game — who can cheer with a mask? who can cheer when the crowd is spread out and the wind is blowing? — I thought back to this sign and the strange topsy-turviness of the world.

Whoever the helpers are — whoever the signmaker is — thank you for a bright spot on an October afternoon.

“Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves.” 
― Germaine Greer