Since I knew the rain was coming, I could ignore it and focus on brighter things, like the library books and the literal walk in the park and the appointment across the street. But I couldn’t ignore it, much less the people who were bound and determined to ignore it and use it at the same time.
Weigh
When you don’t leave the friendly confines, part of you expands to full in the space with responses to events. You retrace your steps, weigh stretching your legs before deciding against, rifle through paper stacks and plan for more action to come: maybe a massage or a brief blitz for errands before the regularly scheduled lineup resumes.
Switch
I’ve got instruments set up the way I want them, but I’m not sure when to start taking them off the wall and switching them into the rotation. That goes double for a certain coffee machine and triple for other machines around here which Shall Not Be Named.
Cravings
Back at it again, through heavy morning rain and light email responses, siding headlines and staving off headaches, beating back cravings and not getting up often enough for sunshine or a walk. My rhythm is better when the week is longer, when there’s more bodies in the room. That’s what tomorrow’s for, so let’s see!
Triennial
I sat on a bench and talked to a nice photographer from Pacifica. As others milled around us, craning their necks and trying to take in all the beauty on the walls around us, he mentioned that one thing some of the art made him feel was depressed. I asked if he found it sobering instead, and he seemed to concur. A few minutes before I noticed a sign identifying the exhibition as a triennial, I said something about how it’s been a tough last three years. Oof!
Persistence
Good conversation all day, excellent food at home, a drive out to a great park to see trees and dodge crowds and mark a pal’s birthday, and even a quick blitz to get in karaoke (David Bowie’s “Time,” for his upcoming birthday, and Neil Diamond’s “Heartlight” for another singer’s belated birthday last week). The highlight may have been prying a bottle capped bottle with a nail clipper and some persistence.
Exit
It rained a little today, but not like last year’s last day. Both days, I got in a grocery store run for organic collard greens, then got in a walk. Last year, we hit the local greenway; today’s was along Grand Avenue in Oakland before the box office opened for a movie. It looks like gas is 30 cents more this year at my local station. At this hour, we’re waiting for the fireworks to start before cracking open a bottle and toasting our exit.
Companionably
We made the most of a quiet day at home, only leaving to pick up a takeaway, putting our heads together briefly on a Thing and companionably focused elsewhere on Other Things, some involving about a dozen Web-ish tabs and some FTP tinkering.
Values
Things can’t go on the way they have, not with rejection of outside choices and rejection of inside values leading to all-too-obvious tragic consequences. I’d had something like it on my mind since noticing a certain anniversary on Christmas Eve, and here it came today, for all of us.
Balm
I know there’s little balm for so much of the trauma and lack that surrounds me. Some folks hold signs by highway ramps, while others cope with levels of crimes, public safeties and private discretions. Still, it spooked me to notice someone doing Something Like That in my rear view this afternoon.