I walked through the plant today and it was… different. every single day every day for thirty years I’d walked those same aisles the same concrete floor the same smell of oil and metal and it felt like my own skin you know now it's all changing. the machines are slowing down the hum isn’t as loud some of them already have the yellow tags the ones that say OUT OF SERVICE or FOR SALE and I see the younger guys they're just getting on with it thinking about the next gig the next hustle always on their phones not really seeing what we're losing this isn't just a job this was... cohesion a shared understanding a collective effervescence durkheim would have had a field day with this place a real sense of belonging and I miss it already even though I’m still here for another few weeks. the jokes at lunch the way we knew each other’s kids' names the little rituals like tuesday morning donuts it was a constant a rhythm you could set your watch by now it's just… a factory soon to be a memory. I’ll be back to the freelance stuff the piecemeal work the unpredictable income but that's not the point not really. I'm just watching it all fade a slow dissolution of something fundamental something that built us up and now it’s just gone. every day every single day I see another piece of it disappear. it’s a form of grief I think a pre-emptive melancholia.