Home and off today, after restocking treats I’ve taken to in the last five weeks and some of the beverages floating me through the last sixteen months, and roaring through Arabic language lessons and nearly half of my last physically borrowed library book, Gretchen Legler’s “Woodsqueer.”
Up late, then later, and then the least sleep I’ve had all month, knowing the quotes were done but the structure could always be better, and having what could be a workable way in, but aware that whatever was going to come from others needed allowing. Then waking, coffee, water, and a way forward.
I took a lap before the call, and that turned out to help. I got up, walked out and wandered around the far edge of the building in the warm afternoon sunshine, past a wooden beehive enclosure to the flowering tree nearby where bees were busy working, then back around and inside to sit and listen.
A children’s book, posted Burma Shave style along the local greenway, and a map of this week’s incorporation anniversary celebration, shared by a city hall security guard, were each significant mood boosters, but the blue jeans I wore and the pollen I walked through without issue must be counted.
<img src=”https://georgeous.org/uploads/2023/ae2636fb4b.jpg” width=”600″ height=”451″ alt=”A stretch of old cement sidewalk, liberally strewn, or seasoned, with pale yellow green pollen that has fallen and built up underneath trees along Church Lane just east of San Pablo Avenue Tuesday, April 25, 2023 in San Pablo, California “>
You keep at it, at things, as you mean to go on. When it’s good, you remember when it wasn’t. When it’s bad, you remember worse, and you hope and work for the better. None of this comes to mind until things happen, but it’s got shorter to travel if always in your hands’ actions and your feets’ path.
Today was one of those Mobius strip treadmills, with unexpected costs on things I like, trips to hoped-for destinations I found closed, lags and gaps in communication, twice as many little needles and punished good deeds as usual. If I could walk backwards to get back to my morning coffee, well…
Home until I wasn’t, and there was this sky and the moon and Venus hanging out in Gemini, and tonight’s book club was full of the usual chill people and some fun suggestions, as well as a bit of discussion around the last book, which most of us made it through. Five out of five, would repeat.
The highlight of a week: a drive into Oakland, meeting A. fresh from work, taking BART into San Francisco, walking through Civic Center and past classic venues to SFJazz on Franklin Street to hear music director and saxophonist Chris Potter perform his new eight-movement work with a full orchestra.
Last night’s quake and eclipse lingered, and the new-habit morning walk didn’t take the edge off several remote (heh) fuckeries, but the maternal unit texted about her new sneakers, and her letter came about a life-insurance offer, and lunch was good, and now an Everything But The Girl album’s on.
I had just pulled into a parking space on North California Boulevard in Walnut Creek, steps from the BART station, when I noticed men (one wearing a hoodie touting an S.F. brewery) standing on the sidewalk outside an apartment complex and talking amongst themselves: a slight omen for tonight’s shift.
