Sunday, 12-3-17

I cried six times today.

One,
I drove through Santa Rosa for the first time since the fires
and I was not prepared
for streets heaped with ash, the
carbonized skeletons of cars
and caution tape flapping like a grim Christmas garland
in a neighborhood I used to know.

Two,
I drove past more ash, more blackened foundations,
the whole road between Sonoma County and home.
When I passed the safari park, where the flames parted
and passed, I thought of the zookeeper,
how he refused to leave his big cats behind to die.

Three,
I read about a woman who survived an attack
by a stranger
in her bedroom
at night. She was a badass.
She survived.

Four,
I heard a new story about my grandfather's twin.
In 1970, he cashed his paycheck and got a $500 bill,
which he used as a bookmark in a library book,
which someone reshelved.
Aunt Verla sent him packing to find it, and he wandered the stacks for a long time before success.
I wondered if the book he read is still in the stacks across from my office.
How many times do I cross his path and never know it?

Five,
Board meeting all morning, mid-morning, most of the afternoon.  Bad news aplenty and I felt powerless.
Then I remembered the republican tax plan at a tough moment.
I was very hungry.
They made me work through lunch.

Six,
I felt like I couldn't climb a mountain or play piano or cook or bake or bicycle or take photographs or knit or line dance or write poetry or any of the other skills I have tried and tried to build over the years,
but you said that you would climb with me, and it doesn't matter if I fail, as long as I try. .


So that's alright then.