The clocks are ticking and the rooster across the street calls out and again I wonder if roosters are allowed in city limits but it doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters, every single thing really matters. There’s so much to worry about these days.
I went to dinner this week with two heart-friends who I have known for more than 20 years. In a tiny restaurant that used to hold a different restaurant that served only breakfast, we had delicious vegan tomkatsu, mine with an egg. We couldn’t not talk about politics. My friend just succeeded in getting German citizenship, which she was entitled to because her grandmother had been on a kinder transport.
Tick, tick.
I wish I had dual citizenship. My friend said we could marry, if that would help. We were joking, at dinner eating ramen in a space that used to be a breakfast restaurant, and we were also not joking.
Sometimes, often times, I can hear the sea lions barking and I can hear the waves hitting themselves, hitting the shore, but not today. When I woke this morning, I saw the moonlight streaming through a back window that I’d forgotten to cover with its blinds. It was a stunning thing, a small and stunning thing, to see that gorgeous light. I often think about what we take for granted. I am dismayed by it.
I wrote a sentence recently that I can’t stop thinking about: Right now, small boys are being taught to be terrible men. It breaks my heart to think of this.
Now I can hear the waves, and I cover my eyes with my hand momentarily. My exhale emerges as a sigh. We are all our certain types of exhausted.
Soon, our cherry tree will blossom and our backyard will explode with its pink blooms. A mourning dove calls, which is one of my favorite sounds. I remember it here, I remember it in Galveston, I remember it in France. The breeze outside is a whisper.
My heart continues on, beating its steady drum.
The Wandering Introvert 