It’s Monday and I don’t know how to start. Didn’t know how to start. Pre-dawn tired from a fitful night of sleep. At least that’s how today’s poem begins. I tried twice to write it, one version not terribly different from the other. I’ve already read a half-dozen poems and had one and half cups of coffee. I’m stuck in a familiar spot: gently asking, “what’s the point?”
Yesterday, after talking with family in the morning and washing off the previous night’s shenanigans, I walked over to a community art market where I was hopeful but underwhelmed. Not very many vendors, not a lot of art to see. On my way back, I sat on a bench by the Bay and watched the rain fall on Sausalito. The sun and clouds played sun and cloud games. Starlings flitted about and hopped on and off of the bench where I was sitting. Eventually, a light mist fell and I walked home. On Chestnut St., one of my bartender friends was standing outside of a nail salon. A different friend was sitting at the counter by a window having brunch. People were watching football in the dark and cavernous bars. After the rain, I got groceries. I made big pot of chili for dinner because it was a chili for dinner type of night. A friend locked herself out of her apartment and asked if I wanted to go for a walk while she waited for the locksmith who wasn’t really a locksmith, but just a guy who was authorized by the property company to bring keys over and then return them. Her little white dog wore a light up green collar the color of a glow stick.
My friend had asked about how a recent date went. I had been thinking about the concept of dating on and off throughout the day. What I wanted to tell my friend was, the whole thing seems weird. It’s like staring at a document written in a foreign language. You’re going to meet some complete stranger, you’re going to try to get to know each other, and if it goes well, you do it again, and after a series of meetings, that presumably all went well enough, or something like that, you might find yourself talking to this person on a regular basis, developing feelings, and who knows, maybe saying I love you and maybe moving in or splitting time in each other’s place, or maybe none of that. I wanted to tell my friend that when I try to conceptualize it, it stops making sense. Like, I’ve been there before, and I used to know how this worked, and I think that’s the end goal, but I’m not sure how or why. Instead, I said it went well and only hinted at my bigger sense of confusion, “I’m not sure how people get from point a to point b.”
It’s only slightly later now. A heavy gray forestalls the morning light. I’m still not sure how to start. A morning walk to the water, one foot in front of the other. I suppose that’s the only way and how it’s always been.