It's fogged in, but the air is fresh this morning. A man wearing the neon orange vest of a city worker rests against a fire hydrant. He's Asian, well over sixty. His hair, in two long braids, stands straight up from his head like antennae. His eyes are alert and smiling.
A woman at the bus stop beside me must be older than anyone I know. She's toothless, skin wrinkled and cracked. But her gray hair is in a ponytail. She wears skinny jeans and tennis shoes, her hands slotted casually into pockets.
I give up my seat on the bus for an elderly man wearing a perfume of marijuana. He looks at me closely around cataracts, nodding his head. "Somebody raised you right," he says. It's only a little thing, but he's tickled.
A black man rattles toward me on the street, his arms and legs moving loose in their joints. He throws one arm at his reflection in a store window. "Back in your motherfucking box!
In your box!" he laughs, passing me on the sidewalk.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Sin
A man is lying on his back, halfway into the street. A well-dressed woman stands over him, making gestures with her hands. It looks incantatory, like she is calling his soul forth from his body. As I get closer I see his cane, his back resting awkwardly on the edge of the curb. Now I can hear what the woman is saying, "Can you roll this way?" Her hands eloquently calling to him. "Can you roll far enough to get out of the street?"
"No," I hear him say. He doesn't sound distressed. Like he's just fine where he is, thank you. "No."
I walk by, only slowing my steps long enough to take it all in, I step over his cane and keep walking. Behind my back I hear a man's voice: "Is everything okay? Can I help?"
Have I sinned against this man, against all of us, by not stopping? I'm quick to rationalize the decision: there isn't much I could do, even between the two of us, we wouldn't be able to move him, he seemed okay with where he was, not many people drive down this alley, there was still room for a car to pass. If the driver could see him.
My neighbors live close to disaster every day. They're out there on that edge: the man with blood running down his face, the woman with the bruised face and missing teeth, shoeless, shaking, crying out. In the morning I can hear voices from my window. It's hard to distinguish between ordinary street person fights and true desperation.
But there are are people who take the time to make that distinction. People who work in the free clinic, social workers, legal aid. I see them out here, too.
At the bus stop, a man with a black eye approaches me. I'm already steeling myself for the usual answer: I don't have anything for you. Is it a sin, my fear? My fear of knowing him, of knowing too well what he needs and my inability to provide it. Or worse - maybe I can give him what he needs, but I don't want to.
He introduces himself as Vince. He grew up here. He wants to ask me a question. Here it comes, I think.
"Do you really, truly believe that we landed on the moon?"
This is of great importance to him. He wants to know what I think. "Yes," I say. "Yes, I do." I don't go on to say it isn't a matter of belief. His face shows astonishment.
"Really?" He says, as I step onto the bus. "You really think that." I watch him as long as I can from the bus window. His hands are in his pockets and he's shaking his head.
"No," I hear him say. He doesn't sound distressed. Like he's just fine where he is, thank you. "No."
I walk by, only slowing my steps long enough to take it all in, I step over his cane and keep walking. Behind my back I hear a man's voice: "Is everything okay? Can I help?"
Have I sinned against this man, against all of us, by not stopping? I'm quick to rationalize the decision: there isn't much I could do, even between the two of us, we wouldn't be able to move him, he seemed okay with where he was, not many people drive down this alley, there was still room for a car to pass. If the driver could see him.
My neighbors live close to disaster every day. They're out there on that edge: the man with blood running down his face, the woman with the bruised face and missing teeth, shoeless, shaking, crying out. In the morning I can hear voices from my window. It's hard to distinguish between ordinary street person fights and true desperation.
But there are are people who take the time to make that distinction. People who work in the free clinic, social workers, legal aid. I see them out here, too.
At the bus stop, a man with a black eye approaches me. I'm already steeling myself for the usual answer: I don't have anything for you. Is it a sin, my fear? My fear of knowing him, of knowing too well what he needs and my inability to provide it. Or worse - maybe I can give him what he needs, but I don't want to.
He introduces himself as Vince. He grew up here. He wants to ask me a question. Here it comes, I think.
"Do you really, truly believe that we landed on the moon?"
This is of great importance to him. He wants to know what I think. "Yes," I say. "Yes, I do." I don't go on to say it isn't a matter of belief. His face shows astonishment.
"Really?" He says, as I step onto the bus. "You really think that." I watch him as long as I can from the bus window. His hands are in his pockets and he's shaking his head.
Monday, June 28, 2010
There is a subway in Los Angeles
To get from Long Beach to L.A., I board a train. I've been told that nobody checks tickets, that nobody bothers to buy them, if they ride the train at all.
"I rode the train. Once," says my Long Beach friend, dropping me off. She has lived here for most of her life.
The train, however, is full of people. A young Latino guy and his little brother wearing a child backpack walk down the aisle. The older brother holds a cardboard box, cut open to show his wares.
"Chocolate," he murmurs as he passes. "Chocolate." This can't be legal, so he speaks low. He passes once through the car and gets off at the next stop.
A band gets on. Guitars and tambourine and bongos, a crowd of people. I wonder if they're a Jesus band. They sit a few rows behind me and tune up, and then nothing. I start to wonder if they're going to perform at all. And then they start. No count that I can hear, nothing: they just start, in perfect time.
She was just seventeen
You know what I mean
And the way she looked was way beyond compare
So how could I dance with another (ooh)
When I saw her standing there
They're good. They hit that tight harmony, clip along at a bright pace, make it their own. And then the song is done, the youngest member in springy dreads walks up and down the aisle with a plastic garbage bag for offerings - and that's it. No more songs.
"People down here are serious," said my San Francisco friend a day ago. "Not like in SF. We just play around up there."
Another guy comes through the train with a cardboard box of goodies. He's a big black guy in his thirties. He doesn't keep his voice low.
"Snacksnacksnacks, twoforadollar, twoforadollar," he says, moving quickly down the aisle. "Snacksnacksnacks." And he hops off at the next stop.
More people get in at Rosa Parks station. This is where I realize I'm the only white person on this train. This is a comfortable, at-home sort of feeling. Is it some insufferable smugness in me? Am I trying to align myself with people in that presumptuous way of edging someone out of her seat, that unbelievable claim that I am One of You, coming in with my big feet and very white whiteness? I don't know. Nobody on this train seems to care one way or the other.
The next snack vendor is in his fifties at least, a Latino man with a trim mustache. He has no patter at all, and sits down at the end of the car, holding the box of chips and candy bars in his lap, staring into nothing. He touches one hand to his forehead and slowly blinks his eyes.
The car is full, but only one person is reading a book, standing. Another reads a pamphlet, his lips making mouse-sized words. Another talks into his cell phone. "Fuck America," he says, then, "I'm done. I'm moving."
I can see the towers of Los Angeles ahead. The sun shines in hard and bright, and we all wear crowns of fire. The light opens us from sternum to navel and our hearts shine back while we turn our heads, eyes bored with all this beauty.
"I rode the train. Once," says my Long Beach friend, dropping me off. She has lived here for most of her life.
The train, however, is full of people. A young Latino guy and his little brother wearing a child backpack walk down the aisle. The older brother holds a cardboard box, cut open to show his wares.
"Chocolate," he murmurs as he passes. "Chocolate." This can't be legal, so he speaks low. He passes once through the car and gets off at the next stop.
A band gets on. Guitars and tambourine and bongos, a crowd of people. I wonder if they're a Jesus band. They sit a few rows behind me and tune up, and then nothing. I start to wonder if they're going to perform at all. And then they start. No count that I can hear, nothing: they just start, in perfect time.
She was just seventeen
You know what I mean
And the way she looked was way beyond compare
So how could I dance with another (ooh)
When I saw her standing there
They're good. They hit that tight harmony, clip along at a bright pace, make it their own. And then the song is done, the youngest member in springy dreads walks up and down the aisle with a plastic garbage bag for offerings - and that's it. No more songs.
"People down here are serious," said my San Francisco friend a day ago. "Not like in SF. We just play around up there."
Another guy comes through the train with a cardboard box of goodies. He's a big black guy in his thirties. He doesn't keep his voice low.
"Snacksnacksnacks, twoforadollar, twoforadollar," he says, moving quickly down the aisle. "Snacksnacksnacks." And he hops off at the next stop.
More people get in at Rosa Parks station. This is where I realize I'm the only white person on this train. This is a comfortable, at-home sort of feeling. Is it some insufferable smugness in me? Am I trying to align myself with people in that presumptuous way of edging someone out of her seat, that unbelievable claim that I am One of You, coming in with my big feet and very white whiteness? I don't know. Nobody on this train seems to care one way or the other.
The next snack vendor is in his fifties at least, a Latino man with a trim mustache. He has no patter at all, and sits down at the end of the car, holding the box of chips and candy bars in his lap, staring into nothing. He touches one hand to his forehead and slowly blinks his eyes.
The car is full, but only one person is reading a book, standing. Another reads a pamphlet, his lips making mouse-sized words. Another talks into his cell phone. "Fuck America," he says, then, "I'm done. I'm moving."
I can see the towers of Los Angeles ahead. The sun shines in hard and bright, and we all wear crowns of fire. The light opens us from sternum to navel and our hearts shine back while we turn our heads, eyes bored with all this beauty.
Friday, June 25, 2010
We escaped places like this
An official-looking truck passes slowly. There are lights on the roof that are meant to flash, though they are not flashing now. Along the side are sober black letters that read: Code Enforcement. My friend L says they are measuring the grass, checking that trash cans have been taken in by noon, that paint schemes are approved colors.
What sort of code violation emergency would require the lights to flash? Does it have a siren?
The streets are wide and sunstruck.
"This place reminds me of Texas," says L.
"It looks like Utah," I say.
"I escaped from Texas."
In the cool of the evening we walk through the street fair. The sign at one booth reads: Questions, Meaning, Destiny
A smaller sign asks, Evolution? I see the evolution of man silhouettes beside another chart showing silhouettes that are all human.
Across the street another booth promises Chocolate-Dipped Waffles on a Stick.
A man bends down to ask his kids, "Do you want to see people with feathers on their heads dancing?"
We do. The feather headdresses are gratifyingly high, rippling in the breeze. We don't know what tribe they are meant to be. One dancer is a flabby white guy in a cop moustache. He dances in an offhand manner, elbows in close to his sides, condescending to make a flicking gesture with the tassels in his hands. The woman in front seems to put her heart in it. She stomps and swoops, grinding her enemies to dust.
The moon is bright and high as we walk back to the car, the Evolution? booth disassembled, chairs stacked in the empty street.
What sort of code violation emergency would require the lights to flash? Does it have a siren?
The streets are wide and sunstruck.
"This place reminds me of Texas," says L.
"It looks like Utah," I say.
"I escaped from Texas."
In the cool of the evening we walk through the street fair. The sign at one booth reads: Questions, Meaning, Destiny
A smaller sign asks, Evolution? I see the evolution of man silhouettes beside another chart showing silhouettes that are all human.
Across the street another booth promises Chocolate-Dipped Waffles on a Stick.
A man bends down to ask his kids, "Do you want to see people with feathers on their heads dancing?"
We do. The feather headdresses are gratifyingly high, rippling in the breeze. We don't know what tribe they are meant to be. One dancer is a flabby white guy in a cop moustache. He dances in an offhand manner, elbows in close to his sides, condescending to make a flicking gesture with the tassels in his hands. The woman in front seems to put her heart in it. She stomps and swoops, grinding her enemies to dust.
The moon is bright and high as we walk back to the car, the Evolution? booth disassembled, chairs stacked in the empty street.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Too tired to write
My brain won't settle. Today I impress a client by spilling soy sauce, sloshing it onto my coat and over the bench where I sit; I feel a cold puddle soaking into the backside of my light tan trousers.
I order dos tacos al pastor at the taco truck for dinner. The man in the truck asks me a question in fast Spanish. I don't follow quickly enough. He speaks to me in English after that.
A couple with a wooden cart are picking up detritus from the street under the supervision of a pair of cops. The cops don't help.
Four homeless guys have set up a shantytown at the bus stop. What will happen to them when the new ordinance goes into effect, prohibiting sitting or lying on public sidewalks? They nod a friendly hello. I decide not to wait for the bus here.
A walk is better anyway. I cross the street and look back down Folsom. It's stunning: low clouds lit up by a diffuse sunset.
I stand in the middle of the street while the Walk sign counts down. Three, two, one.
I order dos tacos al pastor at the taco truck for dinner. The man in the truck asks me a question in fast Spanish. I don't follow quickly enough. He speaks to me in English after that.
A couple with a wooden cart are picking up detritus from the street under the supervision of a pair of cops. The cops don't help.
Four homeless guys have set up a shantytown at the bus stop. What will happen to them when the new ordinance goes into effect, prohibiting sitting or lying on public sidewalks? They nod a friendly hello. I decide not to wait for the bus here.
A walk is better anyway. I cross the street and look back down Folsom. It's stunning: low clouds lit up by a diffuse sunset.
I stand in the middle of the street while the Walk sign counts down. Three, two, one.
Monday, May 31, 2010
A freaking giant
The man is a freaking giant. He lurches through the train, his pants folded up to make shin-high cuffs, held in place with tiny safety pins.
How is it possible for him to find pants that are too long? His head could contain two of mine, his smile a gentle giant smile. He shakes his head, smiling, at the drunk that just got off the train. Drunk, he says, looking at me, smiling, and I smile back.
He keeps talking, speaking now to his reflection in the window, Drugs are bad, drugs, he says, shaking his vast, heavy head, and now I see that gentle giant smile is maybe a simpleton smile, maybe a retarded smile, maybe a psychotic break smile.
All the same, all the same, I smile back, getting off the train. All the same, he seems like an okay guy, just a little loose in his head, a little unjointed, pinned together with tiny, shining safety pins.
How is it possible for him to find pants that are too long? His head could contain two of mine, his smile a gentle giant smile. He shakes his head, smiling, at the drunk that just got off the train. Drunk, he says, looking at me, smiling, and I smile back.
He keeps talking, speaking now to his reflection in the window, Drugs are bad, drugs, he says, shaking his vast, heavy head, and now I see that gentle giant smile is maybe a simpleton smile, maybe a retarded smile, maybe a psychotic break smile.
All the same, all the same, I smile back, getting off the train. All the same, he seems like an okay guy, just a little loose in his head, a little unjointed, pinned together with tiny, shining safety pins.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Sunday go to meetin'
Sunday morning. Last night, this was a dance club. Today folding chairs stand in neat rows in the middle of a wide concrete dance floor. A guy in a gray hoodie sits onstage, casually holding a mike. "Go inside," he exhorts the crowd. "Go deep inside and find what's really there, what you really need."
Two hipster chicks walk to the front of the room, each carrying a small loaf of bread and a glass of wine. They stand beneath the mirror ball as people shuffle forward, taking a piece of bread and dunking it in the wine.
"Jesus had a feast," says the guy in the hoodie. "Called the Last Supper. He told his friends to remember his body, his blood."
The band takes the stage and the lyrics flash onscreen behind them. The guys running the sound board groove to the music.
A white boy in sagging jeans stands and moves behind the chairs. He closes his eyes and turns his face up to the stream of sunshine from a skylight. He lifts his hands, palm up.
Sunday afternoon, and my route is clogged with a street fair. People in outsize platform shoes and streamers and masks, costumed up like show horses. Skin open to the sun and stinging gusts of wind.
A pack of hula hoopers writhe and roll, the hoops always in motion, now vertical, now horizontal.
One girl moves her hoop like a lover, her eyes closed, ecstatic. She turns her face up to the sun, moving her hoop like a prayer.
I make my way through the crowd to the gallery. I'm the first one here, and I find a spot in full sun from the skylight, put on a pot of tea. One by one the others arrive. We open our computers, our notebooks.
We write and we read, and we close our eyes, listening.
Two hipster chicks walk to the front of the room, each carrying a small loaf of bread and a glass of wine. They stand beneath the mirror ball as people shuffle forward, taking a piece of bread and dunking it in the wine.
"Jesus had a feast," says the guy in the hoodie. "Called the Last Supper. He told his friends to remember his body, his blood."
The band takes the stage and the lyrics flash onscreen behind them. The guys running the sound board groove to the music.
A white boy in sagging jeans stands and moves behind the chairs. He closes his eyes and turns his face up to the stream of sunshine from a skylight. He lifts his hands, palm up.
Sunday afternoon, and my route is clogged with a street fair. People in outsize platform shoes and streamers and masks, costumed up like show horses. Skin open to the sun and stinging gusts of wind.
A pack of hula hoopers writhe and roll, the hoops always in motion, now vertical, now horizontal.
One girl moves her hoop like a lover, her eyes closed, ecstatic. She turns her face up to the sun, moving her hoop like a prayer.
I make my way through the crowd to the gallery. I'm the first one here, and I find a spot in full sun from the skylight, put on a pot of tea. One by one the others arrive. We open our computers, our notebooks.
We write and we read, and we close our eyes, listening.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Three days of spring
Dolores Park on Friday: I see my first naked man after hearing about sightings for years. He is face down, belly spreading out to either side, meager buttock cheeks pinking in the sun.
The wind is whips and chains, but if you sit on the grass, you can duck below it, find the still place where sun cooks in. I roll up my pant legs and lean back on my elbows.
A group just behind and to my right speak French. In front of me is a crowd on blankets. Two girls have taken off their shirts, daring in bras. Between them and a boy in shorts lies another girl. I see just bare legs and shoulders, and wonder if she has stripped everything away, her friends acting as minimal screen, thrillingly half-seen.
A gaggle of gay boys is behind and to my left. One of the girls in her bra squeals, one hand over her mouth. A train has just pulled in. The girl gathers up her things, breasts swinging, no time to dress, she scrambles in her black boots and jeans up the hill, shouting again and again as the train closes its doors, rolls away without her.
"You go, girl," yells one of the boys behind me.
I see the friend wasn't naked after all, revealed now in a bikini with the straps down.
Another blanket island of people to my left. Men and a luscious woman, overflowing her tank top, long eyes looking demurely to one side. She lifts to her knees. "I am not a tr*nny!" she says loudly enough for all to hear. "I may have balls and a dick, but I am NOT a tr*nny."
"Tr*nny!" yells the boy from the peanut gallery. The woman laughs and falls back onto the blanket.
Saturday, Washington Square: The grass is full of people. A white guy with a sad little beard holds a glass ball in blackened fingers. He stands and rests the ball on the back of his hand, curved slightly backward to cradle it. He juggles the ball, spindly arms turning long and full of purpose, the ball shooting sunlight across his face.
A set of geekish kids practice backbends, leaning into each other, ankles wobbling. One falls, bringing the rest into a giggling heap beside her.
Sunday, Yerba Buena: I'm having tea with a friend, sunlight sluicing across one arm, the left side of my face. I wonder if I'll burn. A woman appears beside our table, staring stolidly. "Do you have something." Her lips are cracked. We shake our heads, slowly. "I'm sorry," I say, but she stares for a long accusing moment before turning away, pushing into a young couple's space until they have to look up, have to engage.
There are toddlers in flowered springtime church dresses. A mother holds her daughter's hands, crab-walking behind her while she balance-beams along the edge of the fountain.
Another woman raises one hand against the sun, pinching her face away from its light.
I want to absorb every drop of sun, store it in my bones so that tomorrow, in the office, it will radiate heat and grass and hiked up skirts and lazy leaning into shoulders and the quiet rustling of pages in a novel carried to the park.
The wind is whips and chains, but if you sit on the grass, you can duck below it, find the still place where sun cooks in. I roll up my pant legs and lean back on my elbows.
A group just behind and to my right speak French. In front of me is a crowd on blankets. Two girls have taken off their shirts, daring in bras. Between them and a boy in shorts lies another girl. I see just bare legs and shoulders, and wonder if she has stripped everything away, her friends acting as minimal screen, thrillingly half-seen.
A gaggle of gay boys is behind and to my left. One of the girls in her bra squeals, one hand over her mouth. A train has just pulled in. The girl gathers up her things, breasts swinging, no time to dress, she scrambles in her black boots and jeans up the hill, shouting again and again as the train closes its doors, rolls away without her.
"You go, girl," yells one of the boys behind me.
I see the friend wasn't naked after all, revealed now in a bikini with the straps down.
Another blanket island of people to my left. Men and a luscious woman, overflowing her tank top, long eyes looking demurely to one side. She lifts to her knees. "I am not a tr*nny!" she says loudly enough for all to hear. "I may have balls and a dick, but I am NOT a tr*nny."
"Tr*nny!" yells the boy from the peanut gallery. The woman laughs and falls back onto the blanket.
Saturday, Washington Square: The grass is full of people. A white guy with a sad little beard holds a glass ball in blackened fingers. He stands and rests the ball on the back of his hand, curved slightly backward to cradle it. He juggles the ball, spindly arms turning long and full of purpose, the ball shooting sunlight across his face.
A set of geekish kids practice backbends, leaning into each other, ankles wobbling. One falls, bringing the rest into a giggling heap beside her.
Sunday, Yerba Buena: I'm having tea with a friend, sunlight sluicing across one arm, the left side of my face. I wonder if I'll burn. A woman appears beside our table, staring stolidly. "Do you have something." Her lips are cracked. We shake our heads, slowly. "I'm sorry," I say, but she stares for a long accusing moment before turning away, pushing into a young couple's space until they have to look up, have to engage.
There are toddlers in flowered springtime church dresses. A mother holds her daughter's hands, crab-walking behind her while she balance-beams along the edge of the fountain.
Another woman raises one hand against the sun, pinching her face away from its light.
I want to absorb every drop of sun, store it in my bones so that tomorrow, in the office, it will radiate heat and grass and hiked up skirts and lazy leaning into shoulders and the quiet rustling of pages in a novel carried to the park.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunset
I've hardly been outside all day. Rain was forecast, but when I step outside the sky is blue and a vicious wind whips hair across my face.
No, the sky is not blue. It's lit up like a scrim. The sun is setting somewhere west of here, invisible behind downtown buildings. I used to live west of here, and the house where I grew up had enormous windows facing west over the valley. It's easy to be seduced by garish sunset, but you can miss the light of the sky behind you, the blue over pink, fading to white at the curve of the earth.
I walk uphill, gazing down corridors of buildings at each street crossing. Two white skater boys carry their boards listlessly, not talking. A Chinese guy briskly exits his building, checking that the door closes behind him. One black girl is reading from her iPhone to her friend. Bits of her monologue float over the street:
"I'm sorry...I never imagined I'd meet someone like you, someone who brings together all of my dreams in a single person...what you don't know. So beautiful and creative, artistic in a real way, I didn't think people did that anymore, and funny...I don't know where to look...such grace and intelligence...a goddess, you look around and don't see what you do to..."
At "goddess" she releases a nervous laugh, reading on.
The Golden Pearl Spa at Sutter has a bright awning but vizqueen over all the windows. I want to walk in and ask what services they offer, but I don't. A Subway sandwich place is directly above.
A tourist stands in the middle of California Street, snapping photos of the long road down the hill.
Grace Cathedral, with its yellow lights shining upward, looks like a cutout against the bright sky. In the park across the street, dogs off leash snuffle in the bushes beneath the sign saying Dogs are welcome on leash. Two white guys with dogs stand next to the fountain talking loudly. One has a throaty voice, deep for his age. A lanky Asian guy in black leather pants, jacket, and leather newsboy cap pulled down over his eyes sits in half-lotus on one of the benches. An iPod in a speaker dock plays soothing music. His left hand is palm up in his lap, the right palm down, held in front of his face. He holds air between his hands.
It's dark when I start home down the hill, but the air is still and mild. A young guy in a cap offers me a fist bump. I know what's going to follow, but I can't resist the fist bump. Then of course the ask, and I have to tell him I'm sorry, I have nothing with me.
This is how I know I'm back in my own neighborhood.
A woman with lips painted black, extending so far beyond her own lips I think she's wearing a false mustache. Crazy Horse and the Warfield, where I saw X and Henry Rollins play, never imagining I'd live here.
The lights of Market Street Cinema shine the way to my building. In the lobby, someone has set a flower arrangement at the edge of the water feature. Yellow roses and dark purple blossoms.
The flowers are real, just on the edge of withering.
No, the sky is not blue. It's lit up like a scrim. The sun is setting somewhere west of here, invisible behind downtown buildings. I used to live west of here, and the house where I grew up had enormous windows facing west over the valley. It's easy to be seduced by garish sunset, but you can miss the light of the sky behind you, the blue over pink, fading to white at the curve of the earth.
I walk uphill, gazing down corridors of buildings at each street crossing. Two white skater boys carry their boards listlessly, not talking. A Chinese guy briskly exits his building, checking that the door closes behind him. One black girl is reading from her iPhone to her friend. Bits of her monologue float over the street:
"I'm sorry...I never imagined I'd meet someone like you, someone who brings together all of my dreams in a single person...what you don't know. So beautiful and creative, artistic in a real way, I didn't think people did that anymore, and funny...I don't know where to look...such grace and intelligence...a goddess, you look around and don't see what you do to..."
At "goddess" she releases a nervous laugh, reading on.
The Golden Pearl Spa at Sutter has a bright awning but vizqueen over all the windows. I want to walk in and ask what services they offer, but I don't. A Subway sandwich place is directly above.
A tourist stands in the middle of California Street, snapping photos of the long road down the hill.
Grace Cathedral, with its yellow lights shining upward, looks like a cutout against the bright sky. In the park across the street, dogs off leash snuffle in the bushes beneath the sign saying Dogs are welcome on leash. Two white guys with dogs stand next to the fountain talking loudly. One has a throaty voice, deep for his age. A lanky Asian guy in black leather pants, jacket, and leather newsboy cap pulled down over his eyes sits in half-lotus on one of the benches. An iPod in a speaker dock plays soothing music. His left hand is palm up in his lap, the right palm down, held in front of his face. He holds air between his hands.
It's dark when I start home down the hill, but the air is still and mild. A young guy in a cap offers me a fist bump. I know what's going to follow, but I can't resist the fist bump. Then of course the ask, and I have to tell him I'm sorry, I have nothing with me.
This is how I know I'm back in my own neighborhood.
A woman with lips painted black, extending so far beyond her own lips I think she's wearing a false mustache. Crazy Horse and the Warfield, where I saw X and Henry Rollins play, never imagining I'd live here.
The lights of Market Street Cinema shine the way to my building. In the lobby, someone has set a flower arrangement at the edge of the water feature. Yellow roses and dark purple blossoms.
The flowers are real, just on the edge of withering.
Friday, April 23, 2010
What happens when you walk outside
It's dinner from Tu Lan tonight. I step out my door and skirt around the woman with long blond hair and tape holding her glasses together.
Got a dollar? she asks. I shake my head, and she smiles, sympathetically.
At Tu Lan, the guy behind the counter asks what I do. I tell him, and he shakes his head.
I guess the stereotypes aren't always right, he says.
Why? What did you think I was?
A librarian.
This cracks me up.
I take my soup, but the doorway is blocked by a woman staring in. She looks like somebody's mother except for the shiner, one eye swollen shut. African hair wrestled into neat French braids. I edge past her, but she puts out one arm to stop me, one dry hand on my arm, the other on my face.
She leans in and kisses me on the cheek, then turns away.
It's like a mother's kiss.
I pass the blond again. Sixty cents? she says. Her price is dropping.
I walk home, the air cooling the kiss on my cheek.
Got a dollar? she asks. I shake my head, and she smiles, sympathetically.
At Tu Lan, the guy behind the counter asks what I do. I tell him, and he shakes his head.
I guess the stereotypes aren't always right, he says.
Why? What did you think I was?
A librarian.
This cracks me up.
I take my soup, but the doorway is blocked by a woman staring in. She looks like somebody's mother except for the shiner, one eye swollen shut. African hair wrestled into neat French braids. I edge past her, but she puts out one arm to stop me, one dry hand on my arm, the other on my face.
She leans in and kisses me on the cheek, then turns away.
It's like a mother's kiss.
I pass the blond again. Sixty cents? she says. Her price is dropping.
I walk home, the air cooling the kiss on my cheek.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Sunday evening
Across the street, the man with the walker leans over like he's reaching for something on the ground, but his hand hangs loose at the end of his arm. He leans, bent almost double.
A woman walks past him, bag of groceries held tight to her chest. She yells, loud enough for me to hear across Market Street.
"Do you see the people standing next to you on this street? They are selling drugs," she shouts.
The man with the walker is still bent over, hand reaching toward nothing.
A girl with shocking pink hair laughs as I pass. Her bare feet are flat on the sidewalk, skirt pooled around her hips showing perfectly white, round thighs.
Outside a gated store sits a paper bowl containing two neat pastries. A styrofoam cup full of coffee with cream beside it. Something unidentifiable splashes the sidewalk in front of the offering.
The leaning man now hitches up the front of his trousers before squatting in slow motion.
Four women in shining bare flesh and tiny dresses emerge from a cab, and the street boils over. Hey Baby and Oh Darling and I love you, you know I love you and Aaaaaaaah give it to me please. The girls blink mascaraed lashes. One smiles, showing teeth, while the others shrink closer together, tiny clicking steps in their heels.
The man with the walker looks at his watch, then slowly leans over again, again the hand reaching.
A woman walks past him, bag of groceries held tight to her chest. She yells, loud enough for me to hear across Market Street.
"Do you see the people standing next to you on this street? They are selling drugs," she shouts.
The man with the walker is still bent over, hand reaching toward nothing.
A girl with shocking pink hair laughs as I pass. Her bare feet are flat on the sidewalk, skirt pooled around her hips showing perfectly white, round thighs.
Outside a gated store sits a paper bowl containing two neat pastries. A styrofoam cup full of coffee with cream beside it. Something unidentifiable splashes the sidewalk in front of the offering.
The leaning man now hitches up the front of his trousers before squatting in slow motion.
Four women in shining bare flesh and tiny dresses emerge from a cab, and the street boils over. Hey Baby and Oh Darling and I love you, you know I love you and Aaaaaaaah give it to me please. The girls blink mascaraed lashes. One smiles, showing teeth, while the others shrink closer together, tiny clicking steps in their heels.
The man with the walker looks at his watch, then slowly leans over again, again the hand reaching.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
6:17 p.m.
I'm walking home from work. I hear tires screech.
All afternoon I've been hearing this. I work on the fifth floor; traffic noises don't rise, but four times today we all went quiet at our desks, listening. The first time we waited for the crunch, but there was none. The second time we waited again. The third time a colleague got up and walked to the window, looking out and down. The fourth time we looked up for a moment, then back to our screens.
I'm walking home from work, and again I hear the screech. I'm not paying attention. I'm shamed from an email exchange with a friend. I was clumsy; the friend stung.
At the office, I locked myself in the bathroom stall and covered my face with my hands. Last week, there was a woman crying in this stall. She was past the point of being quiet. All she could do was lock herself behind the metal door of the stall. Symbolic privacy.
I don't cry.
I'm walking home from work, and the screech is right in front of me. A white car veers onto the sidewalk then sharply away, into the middle of the street. I know there was a clash - there were two at least - but the sound is strangely distant. Like it's happening in a soundproof room.
The car reels toward me and I can see the driver inside, her arm lifted.
Why doesn't she put on the brakes? I see airbags puffed out stiff. She passes only a few feet away and I turn to see her door open, the car still going, but the door open.
The door is open and she's past and she rolls out of the car. Something stops the car, but my mind can't hold onto it. The car is stopped and she is two yards behind it, on the street.
She's lying on her back. She's young, maybe twenty. She's crying.
I'm walking into the street, dialing 911. She's almost at my feet when the operator answers. I look up to see two cops. There are already police here, I say into the phone, and then I see the highway patrol building is right across the street.
One cop lifts the walkie-talkie on his shoulder to his mouth.
I hear a quiet voice behind me. It was me, she says. We all turn to see another young woman, blond, half-smiling. She holds one hand to her chest, one finger pointed up toward her own face.
It was me.
The woman in the street is crying. I can't breathe, she says. Of course she can breathe, or she wouldn't be able to speak, but she can't make words for what she's feeling. I can't breathe, she says again.
I want to cry, too, but I don't. It would be rude to elbow into her disaster. I'm just someone passing on the street, already in the way, already cruelly gawking.
I am aware again of the bags I'm carrying. I pull away, and start slowly down the street. The story shows itself as I go: the blond's white SUV, headlight smashed, rear-ended the little white car. The little white car was pushed into the parked truck. The truck's owner is there. Did you see what happened? he asks a man smoking. The smoking man shakes his head. All I saw was a car on the sidewalk, ready to hit me.
I see the truck's tailgate is demolished, tools lying scattered and twisted in the street.
More police are arriving. Shards of the accident have stuck to me, sticking in and sticking out. Anyone to embrace me now would be shredded.
The wave follows me out from the center of the accident. A woman is yelling at her boyfriend, ineffectually putting her arms around him as if to throw him to the ground.
Four blocks on, a man shouts. Can I help you? He yells. Can I help you? A man crossing the street the other way yells back, but his voice is lost in the siren.
An ambulance turns my way, beating it past me and down the street. The siren is gratifying. Appropriate. I'm the only one to turn and watch it go.
All afternoon I've been hearing this. I work on the fifth floor; traffic noises don't rise, but four times today we all went quiet at our desks, listening. The first time we waited for the crunch, but there was none. The second time we waited again. The third time a colleague got up and walked to the window, looking out and down. The fourth time we looked up for a moment, then back to our screens.
I'm walking home from work, and again I hear the screech. I'm not paying attention. I'm shamed from an email exchange with a friend. I was clumsy; the friend stung.
At the office, I locked myself in the bathroom stall and covered my face with my hands. Last week, there was a woman crying in this stall. She was past the point of being quiet. All she could do was lock herself behind the metal door of the stall. Symbolic privacy.
I don't cry.
I'm walking home from work, and the screech is right in front of me. A white car veers onto the sidewalk then sharply away, into the middle of the street. I know there was a clash - there were two at least - but the sound is strangely distant. Like it's happening in a soundproof room.
The car reels toward me and I can see the driver inside, her arm lifted.
Why doesn't she put on the brakes? I see airbags puffed out stiff. She passes only a few feet away and I turn to see her door open, the car still going, but the door open.
The door is open and she's past and she rolls out of the car. Something stops the car, but my mind can't hold onto it. The car is stopped and she is two yards behind it, on the street.
She's lying on her back. She's young, maybe twenty. She's crying.
I'm walking into the street, dialing 911. She's almost at my feet when the operator answers. I look up to see two cops. There are already police here, I say into the phone, and then I see the highway patrol building is right across the street.
One cop lifts the walkie-talkie on his shoulder to his mouth.
I hear a quiet voice behind me. It was me, she says. We all turn to see another young woman, blond, half-smiling. She holds one hand to her chest, one finger pointed up toward her own face.
It was me.
The woman in the street is crying. I can't breathe, she says. Of course she can breathe, or she wouldn't be able to speak, but she can't make words for what she's feeling. I can't breathe, she says again.
I want to cry, too, but I don't. It would be rude to elbow into her disaster. I'm just someone passing on the street, already in the way, already cruelly gawking.
I am aware again of the bags I'm carrying. I pull away, and start slowly down the street. The story shows itself as I go: the blond's white SUV, headlight smashed, rear-ended the little white car. The little white car was pushed into the parked truck. The truck's owner is there. Did you see what happened? he asks a man smoking. The smoking man shakes his head. All I saw was a car on the sidewalk, ready to hit me.
I see the truck's tailgate is demolished, tools lying scattered and twisted in the street.
More police are arriving. Shards of the accident have stuck to me, sticking in and sticking out. Anyone to embrace me now would be shredded.
The wave follows me out from the center of the accident. A woman is yelling at her boyfriend, ineffectually putting her arms around him as if to throw him to the ground.
Four blocks on, a man shouts. Can I help you? He yells. Can I help you? A man crossing the street the other way yells back, but his voice is lost in the siren.
An ambulance turns my way, beating it past me and down the street. The siren is gratifying. Appropriate. I'm the only one to turn and watch it go.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Trust me
The man is on a cell phone, clearly upset. Almost - theatrically upset. I'm walking down Market Street and he is half a stride behind me. It's Friday night, and the street is crowded.
Shit! he says, clapping the phone shut.
He's caught up to me, and catches my eye. I'm sorry about that, he says. I didn't mean to...it's just...
He throws his arms in the air. I got carjacked today, he says. My family was carjacked. At the point of a gun.
I stop. I'm sorry to hear that, I tell him. Is everyone okay?
From the moment I hear him on the cell phone, I'm wary. No reason in particular, nothing I can point to - I keep looking for the director, the script girl. He wears a long herringbone coat, leather gloves. A suit. It looks like a costume.
He tells me a long, disjointed story. Pulls out a paper with notes taken on it. He says he has the police report. Details to make it real. The place: just south of here on 101. Their destination: Eureka. They planned to make Eureka tonight. The car was recovered. He's not a transient. You gotta trust me, he says. His wife and kids are waiting by the side of the road. He needs to buy a gas can, gas.
That's when it clicks into place. Gas can. An old friend of mine ran a variation of this very scam some twenty plus years ago. It was a strange and short period for him. He wore a suit and carried a gas can. A story about breaking down just outside of town. Wife and kids waiting.
The carjacking is a thrilling new twist. Violence! Drama!
I stop him there. I don't have anything for him, I say. I'm sorry.
What I really want to say is: how's this working out for you? What I want to say is: I'm sorry you're going to have to go through the whole show again for someone else. It's easier to just ask for cash up front.
What I want to know is: am I getting harder? Am I losing my ability to simply trust?
I'm out with a friend and a woman appears behind us. Help out a woman with a dollar, will you? she asks. We don't have a thing, we say.
Oh, come on, she says. Like we're not playing the game right. Like we didn't just step out of a cab. Like we owe her something, and if we can't just own up say No, without the excuse, we have to pay up.
And I want to know how long I can hold onto my trusting self in this place and this time. If I can look past the scams, the sense of entitlement.
If I can be brave enough to see into a person on the street, if I can learn to not look away, but look in. Look all the way in. And find the person inside who is worth the chance.
Shit! he says, clapping the phone shut.
He's caught up to me, and catches my eye. I'm sorry about that, he says. I didn't mean to...it's just...
He throws his arms in the air. I got carjacked today, he says. My family was carjacked. At the point of a gun.
I stop. I'm sorry to hear that, I tell him. Is everyone okay?
From the moment I hear him on the cell phone, I'm wary. No reason in particular, nothing I can point to - I keep looking for the director, the script girl. He wears a long herringbone coat, leather gloves. A suit. It looks like a costume.
He tells me a long, disjointed story. Pulls out a paper with notes taken on it. He says he has the police report. Details to make it real. The place: just south of here on 101. Their destination: Eureka. They planned to make Eureka tonight. The car was recovered. He's not a transient. You gotta trust me, he says. His wife and kids are waiting by the side of the road. He needs to buy a gas can, gas.
That's when it clicks into place. Gas can. An old friend of mine ran a variation of this very scam some twenty plus years ago. It was a strange and short period for him. He wore a suit and carried a gas can. A story about breaking down just outside of town. Wife and kids waiting.
The carjacking is a thrilling new twist. Violence! Drama!
I stop him there. I don't have anything for him, I say. I'm sorry.
What I really want to say is: how's this working out for you? What I want to say is: I'm sorry you're going to have to go through the whole show again for someone else. It's easier to just ask for cash up front.
What I want to know is: am I getting harder? Am I losing my ability to simply trust?
I'm out with a friend and a woman appears behind us. Help out a woman with a dollar, will you? she asks. We don't have a thing, we say.
Oh, come on, she says. Like we're not playing the game right. Like we didn't just step out of a cab. Like we owe her something, and if we can't just own up say No, without the excuse, we have to pay up.
And I want to know how long I can hold onto my trusting self in this place and this time. If I can look past the scams, the sense of entitlement.
If I can be brave enough to see into a person on the street, if I can learn to not look away, but look in. Look all the way in. And find the person inside who is worth the chance.
Monday, March 22, 2010
The sun shines down
On a day like today, you have to be out in the sun. You have to steal time, walk outside, look at all the women and girls in their sundresses, flesh shining and hungry; white girls already pinking on shoulders, cheeks.
I start in my neighborhood, where the guy selling Street Sheets sings as I pass. We all love you, he calls after me, gold tooth catching sunlight.
As I walk uphill, the street people thin out, drop away; at the top of the hill, a tall young woman rises from the back seat of a limo at the Fairmont. High-heeled sandal, white draped calf, thigh, and now dark hair caught up in a jeweled clasp, bare shoulders, waist: she stands on the walkway in a long white evening gown. Just beyond her, in the doorway of the hotel, an older woman waits for her car, aggressively ugly in clothes chosen to announce wealth: shapeless, heavy, baldly ornamented.
Across from Grace Cathedral is a small park. Bronze fountain supported by naked young men, bronze eyes blank. A woman lies on a bench, head on her purse, eyes closed - almost closed - she tries to sleep but her consciousness keeps her tuned in.
Every bench is occupied and much of the grass, skirts lifted and sleeves rolled to expose skin to sun. At one bench is a man who would look at home in my part of town, down in the flats: dirty beard, dreadlocked hair. He's spinning.
I stop to look closer. I had thought it was a bicycle wheel, but now I see the thread winding from a spindle in his hand to the shining wheel. The wheel spins and the spindle dips and wool or cotton or gold from straw is spun.
The spindle dips and releases me, long running strides down the hill. Soon I'll be home, the mirror in my loft spinning the last drops of sunshine into a jar on the shelf by the bed.
At night, when the back door to the strip club slams and I hear voices spiraling up the walls to my window, I'll open the jar. I'll hear the beginnings of a fight, the Don't you dare, the I'm not the one, and I'll scatter stored sunlight down and over their shoulders.
They'll stop, look up, breathe in, and remember a day when bare toes dug into dirt and grass roots. When sun cooked into shoulders and back. When they dreamed of a spring that never ends.
I start in my neighborhood, where the guy selling Street Sheets sings as I pass. We all love you, he calls after me, gold tooth catching sunlight.
As I walk uphill, the street people thin out, drop away; at the top of the hill, a tall young woman rises from the back seat of a limo at the Fairmont. High-heeled sandal, white draped calf, thigh, and now dark hair caught up in a jeweled clasp, bare shoulders, waist: she stands on the walkway in a long white evening gown. Just beyond her, in the doorway of the hotel, an older woman waits for her car, aggressively ugly in clothes chosen to announce wealth: shapeless, heavy, baldly ornamented.
Across from Grace Cathedral is a small park. Bronze fountain supported by naked young men, bronze eyes blank. A woman lies on a bench, head on her purse, eyes closed - almost closed - she tries to sleep but her consciousness keeps her tuned in.
Every bench is occupied and much of the grass, skirts lifted and sleeves rolled to expose skin to sun. At one bench is a man who would look at home in my part of town, down in the flats: dirty beard, dreadlocked hair. He's spinning.
I stop to look closer. I had thought it was a bicycle wheel, but now I see the thread winding from a spindle in his hand to the shining wheel. The wheel spins and the spindle dips and wool or cotton or gold from straw is spun.
The spindle dips and releases me, long running strides down the hill. Soon I'll be home, the mirror in my loft spinning the last drops of sunshine into a jar on the shelf by the bed.
At night, when the back door to the strip club slams and I hear voices spiraling up the walls to my window, I'll open the jar. I'll hear the beginnings of a fight, the Don't you dare, the I'm not the one, and I'll scatter stored sunlight down and over their shoulders.
They'll stop, look up, breathe in, and remember a day when bare toes dug into dirt and grass roots. When sun cooked into shoulders and back. When they dreamed of a spring that never ends.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Dianetics changed my life
Sometimes it seems I've moved to a whole new country. A planet of lost souls, people hanging on to the edge of the city with blackened fingernails.
A woman toddles toward me with a terrifying goggle-smile. Her hair is blond and curly. She was cute, once. She might have been pretty. The smile now is pulled painfully over the front of her face. "Helloooo!" she says as I pass. "Helloooo!" exactly the same overbright tone to the person behind me. "Helloooo!"
Inside a restaurant, in a nearly empty dining room, a woman and her children raise their arms above their heads and spin. The woman pauses, and her eyes meet mine. She shrugs, raising her arms again.
A man in a wheelchair speaks a language that doesn't exist on earth.
On the bus, I'm taken in by the Dianetics ad. Indisputably the most read book on the human mind ever written, it says. Indisputably? I think. It seems an outlandish claim. A young man is sitting next to me. He looks like any of a thousand young men in the city. Skinny jeans, expensive backpack. Just before his stop he stands and reaches over the head of the woman across the aisle. He pulls at the ad, diligently. Sorry, he mumbles, as it doesn't give as easily as he expected. Finally he tears it down the middle, crumpling half in his fist before hopping off the bus.
Guess he doesn't like Scientology, a man at the back of the bus says.
The erupting volcano remains.
At night I dream of the blond woman's rictus, her teeth showing in a Joker grin. Helloooo? she asks my sleeping self. Hello, I want to say. Hello. I see you.
A woman toddles toward me with a terrifying goggle-smile. Her hair is blond and curly. She was cute, once. She might have been pretty. The smile now is pulled painfully over the front of her face. "Helloooo!" she says as I pass. "Helloooo!" exactly the same overbright tone to the person behind me. "Helloooo!"
Inside a restaurant, in a nearly empty dining room, a woman and her children raise their arms above their heads and spin. The woman pauses, and her eyes meet mine. She shrugs, raising her arms again.
A man in a wheelchair speaks a language that doesn't exist on earth.
On the bus, I'm taken in by the Dianetics ad. Indisputably the most read book on the human mind ever written, it says. Indisputably? I think. It seems an outlandish claim. A young man is sitting next to me. He looks like any of a thousand young men in the city. Skinny jeans, expensive backpack. Just before his stop he stands and reaches over the head of the woman across the aisle. He pulls at the ad, diligently. Sorry, he mumbles, as it doesn't give as easily as he expected. Finally he tears it down the middle, crumpling half in his fist before hopping off the bus.
Guess he doesn't like Scientology, a man at the back of the bus says.
The erupting volcano remains.
At night I dream of the blond woman's rictus, her teeth showing in a Joker grin. Helloooo? she asks my sleeping self. Hello, I want to say. Hello. I see you.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Alarm will sound as a whooping horn.
This morning, as I walk to work, I see a man in the middle of the street. In the middle of a lane. I hear a siren coming this way. He plants his feet wide, bending his knees like he's going to go into a crouch. I watch him, curious.
At work there's a plate by the elevator with instructions in case of a fire. It tells me:
Alarm will sound as a whooping horn.
A sign inside the elevator informs me that the alarm will be tested tomorrow morning at 7 am. It will be very loud, it says.
The alarm is very loud. Last week it rattled me at my desk. We filed outside like schoolkids, down the metal and cement stairway and into the parking lot. We stood around and looked at each other while the building screamed.
In my new sixth floor loft, I can't hear much noise from the street. I do hear sirens; after a while they become a sort of backdrop. Tonight I hear protesters moving down Market toward City Hall. I step out on to the fire escape to watch them go by, escorted by police cars and vans and their flashing lights.
I can also hear church bells from my window.
The man in the middle of the street emerges from his crouch as the siren approaches. He's young and beautiful. He stretches one long arm out front of his body, palm up. He's pulling the ambulance toward him. Scooping out into the air with both arms now, and now his mouth opens, the siren is inside me and inside him; I see but don't hear his laugh as it rocks by, tossing his hair back in its wake, his eyes are open and both arms are in the air and he's laughing like he's found the secret of joy.
At work there's a plate by the elevator with instructions in case of a fire. It tells me:
Alarm will sound as a whooping horn.
A sign inside the elevator informs me that the alarm will be tested tomorrow morning at 7 am. It will be very loud, it says.
The alarm is very loud. Last week it rattled me at my desk. We filed outside like schoolkids, down the metal and cement stairway and into the parking lot. We stood around and looked at each other while the building screamed.
In my new sixth floor loft, I can't hear much noise from the street. I do hear sirens; after a while they become a sort of backdrop. Tonight I hear protesters moving down Market toward City Hall. I step out on to the fire escape to watch them go by, escorted by police cars and vans and their flashing lights.
I can also hear church bells from my window.
The man in the middle of the street emerges from his crouch as the siren approaches. He's young and beautiful. He stretches one long arm out front of his body, palm up. He's pulling the ambulance toward him. Scooping out into the air with both arms now, and now his mouth opens, the siren is inside me and inside him; I see but don't hear his laugh as it rocks by, tossing his hair back in its wake, his eyes are open and both arms are in the air and he's laughing like he's found the secret of joy.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Invisible frogs
I can hear frogs when I step outside. A stagey chorus of frog voices. I hear them, but I can't see them, although I lurked beside the pond this afternoon, peering into crevices. No dice.
I can even hear them in here, in my room. Don't be fooled; it's a creature metropolis out here in the country. Teeming. Last night I needed to walk, but the dark here is deep. I saw a path leading up and into trees and I stepped in that direction, flashlight in hand.
I stepped in that direction, then stopped. All the childhood fears - of things moving in the dark, things unseen, of lives going on in the underbrush - all came running up to hit me square in the face. I'm a grown-up woman who walks easily by neighborhood toughs and crackheads and drunks, but this was too much. An unknown path in the deep dark of the forest is just too much.
I turned back to my room, ready to run laps up and down the stairs.
Today a jackrabbit the size of a beagle looks at me out the side of his eyes, giant ears alert, then dismisses me. I'm not a threat; I barely exist in its world. A mutant bumblebee circles my head, impossibly staying aloft, buzzing like a small plane coming in for a landing.
Two deer have a friendly shit together not five feet away, and I barely register. I'm irrelevant.
A person could get used to this. If I could stay here another week or three, my little dramas might shrink back down into proportion. But it's only another day and a half, and then I'll be back in my own wilderness.
Until then, the frogs belch in their amphitheaters, unfazed by my tromping boots while I try to find them out. They're performing for another crowd entirely.
I can even hear them in here, in my room. Don't be fooled; it's a creature metropolis out here in the country. Teeming. Last night I needed to walk, but the dark here is deep. I saw a path leading up and into trees and I stepped in that direction, flashlight in hand.
I stepped in that direction, then stopped. All the childhood fears - of things moving in the dark, things unseen, of lives going on in the underbrush - all came running up to hit me square in the face. I'm a grown-up woman who walks easily by neighborhood toughs and crackheads and drunks, but this was too much. An unknown path in the deep dark of the forest is just too much.
I turned back to my room, ready to run laps up and down the stairs.
Today a jackrabbit the size of a beagle looks at me out the side of his eyes, giant ears alert, then dismisses me. I'm not a threat; I barely exist in its world. A mutant bumblebee circles my head, impossibly staying aloft, buzzing like a small plane coming in for a landing.
Two deer have a friendly shit together not five feet away, and I barely register. I'm irrelevant.
A person could get used to this. If I could stay here another week or three, my little dramas might shrink back down into proportion. But it's only another day and a half, and then I'll be back in my own wilderness.
Until then, the frogs belch in their amphitheaters, unfazed by my tromping boots while I try to find them out. They're performing for another crowd entirely.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Time to make the doughnuts
Because what a writer does is write. Because I said this blog is updated weekly, and it's been a week. Because when my brother owned a doughnut store, he got up at four or even three every morning to make the doughnuts, yeah, just like the guy in the commercial.
Because there's no such thing as writer's block. There's only the writer and the page and the words and you have to put the words on the page or you're not a writer.
You have to put the words on the page even when you think there's nothing to say. It's only when you start putting words on the page that you remember the German tourist in running clothes asking how to get to Castro, and then to Golden Gate Park, how you point back in the direction he came from and he's off and flying, ready to cover the whole city in his white running shoes.
And his shoes, like a dotted line, point the way to the blond sitting in a doorway, her head down. She asks for a cigarette when you're already past her. She doesn't look up, the words coming out of her like she's been saying them for years, pull her string and Spare a cigarette? and the string runs out and someone else walks by and her string is pulled again: Spare a cigarette?
From her to chalked exhortations on the sidewalk:
It May Not Seem Like It, But Things Will Get Better
You Rock My Socks
I Am A Better Person Because Of You
A neighborhood crackhead wavers on his feet, burning cig between his fingers. His eyes trace the one that reads:
You Are Exactly Where You Need To Be
Because there's no such thing as writer's block. There's only the writer and the page and the words and you have to put the words on the page or you're not a writer.
You have to put the words on the page even when you think there's nothing to say. It's only when you start putting words on the page that you remember the German tourist in running clothes asking how to get to Castro, and then to Golden Gate Park, how you point back in the direction he came from and he's off and flying, ready to cover the whole city in his white running shoes.
And his shoes, like a dotted line, point the way to the blond sitting in a doorway, her head down. She asks for a cigarette when you're already past her. She doesn't look up, the words coming out of her like she's been saying them for years, pull her string and Spare a cigarette? and the string runs out and someone else walks by and her string is pulled again: Spare a cigarette?
From her to chalked exhortations on the sidewalk:
It May Not Seem Like It, But Things Will Get Better
You Rock My Socks
I Am A Better Person Because Of You
A neighborhood crackhead wavers on his feet, burning cig between his fingers. His eyes trace the one that reads:
You Are Exactly Where You Need To Be
Monday, February 08, 2010
Shall we dance
The day starts with filtered sunshine, sliding in between the buildings and finding me out in my new little home.
From my bed I can lean out the window and see down the pocket between my building and the next: six floors to the bottom. Looking up I see HOTEL painted in red block letters. Behind HOTEL, GRANT BLDG. announces itself. Across the canyon of Market Street, faded letters spell RENOIR HOTEL from top to bottom. We are an exclusive society of aging buildings up here, a cotillion in gloves worn soft as kitten paws.
The sun is gone by late afternoon, and when I lift my head from work, the streets are shining wet.
It's nearly nine when I'm standing at the bus stop, scarf over my head. A tall white man with big teeth is the only other passenger at the stop. He wears salary man clothes: blue oxford shirt, gray trousers, shined shoes. I see his feet moving out of the corner of my eye. At first I think he's dancing with the cold, but then I look at him properly.
He's just dancing. Holding his coat as a partner, he's marking out steps. Right-two-three, he whispers, and turn! He spins, coat sleeves flying out, and I see his eyes for an instant, the tiny shock of catching my gaze. He calms it down, self-conscious, but I can still see his weight shifting forward, back, side, side.
His feet don't lift from the sidewalk, but he's dancing just the same.
From my bed I can lean out the window and see down the pocket between my building and the next: six floors to the bottom. Looking up I see HOTEL painted in red block letters. Behind HOTEL, GRANT BLDG. announces itself. Across the canyon of Market Street, faded letters spell RENOIR HOTEL from top to bottom. We are an exclusive society of aging buildings up here, a cotillion in gloves worn soft as kitten paws.
The sun is gone by late afternoon, and when I lift my head from work, the streets are shining wet.
It's nearly nine when I'm standing at the bus stop, scarf over my head. A tall white man with big teeth is the only other passenger at the stop. He wears salary man clothes: blue oxford shirt, gray trousers, shined shoes. I see his feet moving out of the corner of my eye. At first I think he's dancing with the cold, but then I look at him properly.
He's just dancing. Holding his coat as a partner, he's marking out steps. Right-two-three, he whispers, and turn! He spins, coat sleeves flying out, and I see his eyes for an instant, the tiny shock of catching my gaze. He calms it down, self-conscious, but I can still see his weight shifting forward, back, side, side.
His feet don't lift from the sidewalk, but he's dancing just the same.
Friday, January 29, 2010
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