Despite getting plenty of sleep, I’m tired and only halfway through my morning coffee. For a few moments, I close my eyes. In a near-dreamlike state, I pay attention to the scenes that flash across my mind. I’m standing in a darkened hallway near a set of steps – a woman is with me, we’re…
Category: Life
Home. Again. At Last.
I took the day off today. A few months ago, I had thought of taking today off and getting a new tattoo. It’s the same tattoo I was thinking of getting on my 50th birthday, or on the anniversary of when I moved here, or on other anniversaries in years past. The initial concept from…
Days Like This, Times Like These
I’ve been in a bit of a funk this week. From some time earlier in the week: This morning, despite the sunshine and the sound of parakeets and the clear blue sky, I was afflicted with a pestering case of the why bothers. The national and world news awash in economic calamity was overwhelming and…
April Days Slip Away
All morning, time slips. From sleep to stirring to slowly waking to sips of coffee facing a wool-gray sky. There’s little to report. The days slide by, mostly unencumbered. Saturday we filled the square. We marched. We dispersed and went home. On the bus I spoke with a woman, a veteran undergoing cancer treatments. She’s…
Not Quite Under the Bridge
On my Saturday walk home from the food pantry where I do some work, I made the spur of the moment decision to turn right off of Haight St. and climb the steep hill into Buena Vista Park. Despite having walked past the park dozens of times, I had never ventured in. Not surprisingly, with…
Joe the Dismissive but Jovial Guy
I started talking with Joe because I overheard him debating with the tr*mper sitting between us. When the tr*mper left, I leaned over and said, “you’re not wrong, this is some scary nazi shit that’s going on.” Joe seemed like a nice enough guy, and at least we agreed on politics. Joe is from Canada…
Sunday Witness
It wasn’t until I had walked away, after talking to the police, that I began to look over my shoulder to see if anyone was following me. Nobody was – though the mild sense of paranoia stuck with me for a few more blocks until I reached my destination, a sun-drenched bar in the Mission…
Spring Colors in SF
Without really looking at the ingredients, I ordered the “Armageddon.” Pastrami, avocado, cheddar, jalapeno, honey mustard. Slightly warm and wrapped in deli paper, I added it to my backpack where I had a hoodie, a thermos full of coffee, two books of poetry, and a notebook. Everything I needed for my walkabout. I spent this…
I’ll Deal with Later When It’s Later
This morning, while reading poetry and drinking coffee as a sunless white-gray light fills my apartment, I learn that the poet John Berryman committed suicide by jumping off of the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis. Though now we say died from suicide, because as one psychologist put it, we wouldn’t say committed cancer. I’ve heard…
Self-Reliance
At some point, which is another way
of saying now, your tireless indecision
of what to do with your life
becomes precisely what you have done with your life.
From “Self-Reliance” by Dobby Gibson
After fidgeting, and scrolling, and checking apps, and trying to decide how to spend my evening, I settled on…
Episode 17: Not a Good Fit
Above the bar, the paper sign yellowed with age read, “Reality is an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol.” The quote is from the vaudeville comedian and actor, W.C. Fields. The bar, Specs’, is a well-known haunt in the North Beach part of town. It’s often associated with its beatnik neighbors across…
Testing Openness to Change
In one of those Proustian moments, I read the word windmill in a poem and was lost to the past. I drifted back to my first trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi. I had gone there with a woman I was dating, and where we stayed, a place with shacks and small grain silos converted into rooms…