Assessment

 My birthday is in June. The middle of the year. Often on the solstice. For years, mostly during my late teen's, my twenties and maybe my early thirties, I did a critical reassessment of how I was doing on my birthday and six months later on New Years eve. The thing is - I'm not an external goal maker. I'm not trying to run in a marathon or learn French. My assessments were always internal and abstract and tortured. Lots of hand wringing. I don't remember when I stopped or if it was a conscious choice to stop. 

I usually love those end of the year round ups. But this year. 

This year. 

I mean. 

I remember in March my goddaughter was bringing my grand-godson for a visit. I had not met him. She was in New Orleans where the pandemic was already killing people that she knew. She wasn't comfortable traveling. I thought she was probably right but I was so sad. People kept asking me if I was worried about the pandemic. I wasn't. I live in a small city in the middle of a gorge. People come and go but I'm not running around and I felt like it might not get to us. Or at least not in a big way. 

Shortly after the beginning of March the sports club closed down. No swimming. I stopped going to the store. I met with friends in the garage. Masked at a distance. At some point things opened again. I went back to the pool and felt safe because I was masked and there weren't many people there. As more people came masking became an issue. One woman told me I was a fearful person. A moment I will never forget. More and more cases in the country, in Oregon and in the Hood. I stopped feeling safe about the same time I stopped having a ride. No swimming. Friends were coming into the nest. Not many. We masked up occasionally if they'd been around a lot of people. Friends shopped for me. 

I continued with yoga and my bike pedals until my knee started spasming. My activity level dropped. I read books. 

The economy dropped and scared me enough that I stopped buying books. Which turned out to be a fun thing. I have purchased and been gifted many books. Looking at my book shelves was like having my own little store. I worked through shelf after shelf. 

Then the primary and the election. All stressful and annoying. 

The demonstrations. The deaths of Black people at the hands of police. 

It feels like 2020 will slip into 2021 with not much change. There will be more surges. There will be more violence. January seems grim. Maybe even February. Maybe longer. 

I know Biden isn't great but he is better. There will be things that get better. The vaccine isn't perfect but it's hope. I feel like things will get better in many ways. There is sense of momentum. There is also a sense of irreparable damage. Having a binary metric isn't useful. 

I am something. Something like happy. If I sound reticent it's because I am worried about the damage. I'm worried about all the best effort not being enough. Happy isn't something I'm used to. Nor was it ever anything I cared much about. Internal goals. Abstract and tortured. I always reserve a part of myself in some kind of awareness of everything, everybody around me. 

Small things seem to knock me down. Almost always having to do with a sense of people not doing what they should do. A mail person doesn't take the time to find a package, which becomes obvious when another one does. I feel a desire to demand accountability. It might be my privilege showing and it's also a sense that we all need to be doing what we can. That we are in a crisis. More than one. It may also be left overs from the time of taking care of the mommie. I only know that the desire to shout why is overwhelming. I feel weepy and a bit craven. 

In my life the damage has been repairable. I sit in my warm nest. Fed. Rested. New stack of books from Christmas. Something like happy. 

No critical reassessment. 

No goals. 

Can I say happy new year? Can I use that ebullient word and feel it? In the context of all the death and all the cruelty and all the loss? Can I feel happy new year? Can I let go of assessment and just hold a moment? 

Not sure. 

But something like happy.  

 

Billie

 I was fifteen or sixteen when I learned about Billie Holiday. I'm not sure how but it was probably reading liner notes. If you never owned an album (LP) you might not know what liner notes are. Records were in paper sleeves to protect them. The sleeves often had lyrics, names of who was playing on a given record, biographical info. When I got a new album I sat for hours reading the liner notes. 

I bought a Billie Holiday album when I was still living with the mommie. I was listening to it one day when my bedroom door came flying open. The mommie was used to hearing folk, rock and roll, Motown, pop, blues coming from my room. None of which she liked. Billie was singing her music. We sang together for a few tunes. 

The mommie and I had a long standing tradition of singing together. She would be in the bath and I would be sitting on the toilet while we sang Chattanooga Choo Choo. We kept that tradition during her days of Dementia. But in those teenage years we just didn't like the same music. 

Suddenly she stood up and said something about the people she had heard sing the songs were better and walked out. I was confused and a bit stung. 

It felt like it was about race. I don't have the musical vocabulary to explain why I thought that. It had to do with the way Billie bent notes. She was not Patti Page. I liked Pattie Page. I just liked Billie ... better. I felt the music differently. 

When I interrogate the racism that lives in me it's often about absence. I grew up in White space. Black people were not in my church or school. They didn't live in my neighborhood. I saw them on buses and street cars. Black culture fascinated me. The music especially. I read Black writers. I read Baldwin although having recently reread him I don't feel like I got it. Black people were exotic. I knew about slavery although not in depth. I wanted to believe racism was in the past.  

In my twenties I spent hours in the bath tub. I had some kind of bath stuff that turned the water lime green. I went through a vodka Gimlet phase. Gimlets matched the water. I had a chair near enough to hold an ash tray and my smokes. My Gimlet. A small mirror on which a few lines of coke were drawn. And Billie on the boom box. Once a friend came by and found me passed out in the tub. He assumed suicide because he saw the razor blade I used to chop the coke. If it was suicide it was a passive act. I just wanted to get mellow and sing with Billie. 

That moment with the mommie in which we connected while singing I Cover the Waterfront and Embrace Me has been coming back to me. I know there are things packed into it.

November

I am not having the November I thought I would have. I had a nice election day. A friend brought me coffee and a breakfast sandwich to fortify me for the long day ahead. A book that I didn't expect for a few more days arrived early. Not that I could concentrate to read but it was nice to have it. A friend from Colorado called in the evening. We stayed on the phone and watched as state after state turned red. Nerve wracking. I had heard the red mirage theory so I tried to remain calm. As the days unfolded and it became clear that Biden had won. I breathed a little easier. The occupant's lies and refusal to concede are annoying but with each day it sounds more like a ridiculous drone. Two more months of it seems miserable but ... the end is nigh. 

COVID continues to be a frustrating heart ache. I have nothing to say that hasn't been said. It's a more significant drone. Over worked health care workers with minimal PPE and continuing rising numbers of deaths. My heart is always breaking. 

And. As I have said a few hundred times. I'm so glad the mommie isn't here for it. The last few Novembers have been about grief. The grief is there but ... I am really so glad she isn't here for this. 

So the month has been sad. But not as sad. 

I mean. It's a sad time. Food lines. Deaths. Political shouting fests. It's all sad. Sadness happens, 

A few years back I read an article about a woman who accidently texted a stranger thinking she was texting her grandson reminding him to be to her house for Thanksgiving dinner at 3 o'clock. A young man who got the text texted back and said she wasn't his grandmother but could he still get a plate. She said, of course. And a tradition was born. 

This year her husband died from the corona virus. And gathering for dinner is problematic with the  virus still active. The woman and her not-really-grandson got together for an early Friday night dinner. Just the two of them. 

A story like that one fills me up. Comforts me in ways I can't describe.

Only connect.

I have my own Christmas elf. She drags the boxes of stuff up from the garage and does most of the work putting things around. We've done everything but the tree. I have continued my tradition of buying a live tree. It's waiting at the garden center. After it's been my Christmas tree it will enjoy the rest of its life on the Oregon coast. A wind storm knocked down a bunch of trees where my elf has her trailer. My tree will be a new start there. 

Today I will eat a Turkey dinner from a hotel instead of cooking. The chef there is good so I'm confident. The pumpkin pecan pie will be from a local small baker. The sun has been in and out. I'll read. Maybe watch some more of the Queen's Gambit. 

Life. 

Will go on. 

Oak Street Halloween

I think I've written about this before. 

The first year I was in the nest the mommie came for a visit. She had given up traveling but she really wanted to see the nest and Hood River. She got on a plane and came out. She loved looking out the windows at the Oak Street goings on. Her only complaint was that it was hard to watch TV because Oak Street was more interesting. 

On Halloween I was about to put dinner on the table when I noticed people in the middle of the street, including children. She noticed too. I opened the door and looked up the street. It had been blocked off and families were beginning to wander about, many with costumes. In front of the shops people were sitting with bowls of candy. The ice cream shop up the street was giving away free ice cream before they closed for the year. Dinner was going to wait. The mommie was captivated. Since then it's been one of my favorite times of year. Hood River feels like a small town. 

This year it won't happen. I am overwhelmed with sadness. Which seems a little extreme. I think it's carrying the weight of all the larger sadness. The rise in COVID cases and deaths. The exhaustion of the health care workers. The stress of the election. 

It feels dysphoric to say but COVID gave me a gift. I am so glad the mommie isn't here for it. I don't know how I would have taken care of her. The news coming out of care facilities is terrifying. There is a place near by in which there were a few deaths. There had been a fall in the care giving because they couldn't get workers. Those stories hit me hard. Yesterday in the NY Times there was an article about senior facilities and the problems with care. Because of all of that it's the first time I've been able to relax into the fact of her being gone. 

Usually I start getting a little sad in November. I see the cover of a magazine with pictures of turkey dinners. I remember Thanksgiving dinners that I loved cooking. The pain in my knees makes it hard to get cereal and milk in a bowl. I won't be cooking any big dinners. The date of her death is just before Thanksgiving. I get sadder and sadder through the month. The day after Thanksgiving I'm ready to put up Christmas decoration. I'm still a little sad but Thanksgiving just feels like loss now. Once it's over I'm ready to have a holiday. 

I'm usually so caught up in Oak Street Halloween that I don't feel the sadness. This year I guess it's going to start a little early. 

I don't have the ... uh ... I dunno ... what ever it takes to buck up today. I'm trying (not entirely successfully) to stay away from the news and doom scrolling. Read my book. Take it one breath at a time. 

Systems

I've been thinking about Plessy v Ferguson. Random? Not really. That supreme court (1896) upheld the idea that racial segregation was constitutional. It has never been overruled. It sits in the shadows like some rancid, not quite dead snake, that keeps reeling its head. Brown v Board (1954) sort of over ruled it by stating that separate but equal was unconstitutional (equal protections clause of the fourteenth amendment), at least in educational institutions. 

Eisenhauer signed the Civil Rights Act (1957) and LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. 

And. 

On Monday afternoon police shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr.  He was ten feet away from them, holding a knife. He was shot multiple times.  

Black Lives Matter has been around for six years. In the streets. That is where my hope for change is. 

We're all worried about the Supreme court and we should be.  I am. Specifically because of Roe v Wade but on Monday the court ruled that Wisconsin can't count ballots if they arrive after election day. Justice Kagan wrote a dissent in which she said that nothing could be more supercilious or improper than refusing to count ballots because they arrive after midnight. It was a shot at Kavanaugh. Justice Ginsburg may be gone but the struggle continues. 

I've been thinking about the Jane Collective. From 1969 to 1973 they worked to help women find doctors who needed an abortion. They even learned how to do simple abortions. If the court overturns Roe, or just upholds laws that make legal safe abortion hard to get there will be a battle. 

I don't really know what the future will look like. I'm not sure what the battles will look like. I just know that through out history the courts and the congress and all the rule makers have done some terrible things. And people continued to fight. I think Justice Ginsburg was know to respond to defeat by getting back to work. 

I've been really nervous right before I go to sleep lately. I have mini panic attacks.  I feel like something is wrong.  And then I remember. Something is wrong. Lots of somethings are wrong. 

A group called Joy to the Polls have been working with various artists to get music to poll locations where people are waiting hours in line to vote. People dance in line. There have been drummers. And marching bands. The wonderful Chef Jose Andres has been providing food for people in line. People helping and bringing joy. 

This is what I hope it looks like.  

No Good Very Bad

The nest has three floor to ceiling windows in the front. When I first moved in they were covered with blinds that I almost broke the first night. It's hard to explain how I did that but I did. They weren't just cheap blinds. Every morning I walked the width of the room opening the blinds and then the reverse in the evening. After a year or so one broke. 

I wanted smart blinds that I could raise and lower with my phone. I went to a place in town that sells them and had a long conversation with a really nice woman about what I wanted. She showed me books full of samples. The ones I liked the best were super costly. Of course. She very kindly told me about a guy who could fix my blind. And he did. A year later they broke again. So I got the ones I wanted. They have a honeycomb shape that blocks sound and light really well. They are purple. A very light diaphones purple, of course. The wall is a dark green/blue. The blinds and wall look so lovely together. I often sit in the chair by the window and just stare at those colors and feel happy. I feel grateful. My little nest makes me so happy. I feel spontaneously grateful, often.

I've never been enthusiastic about gratitude as a practice. I don't want to conjure it. There are days when gratitude is a child lost in the fog. I might be able to hear it but I can't see it. 

I am fierce about feeling what I feel when I feel it. 

These days feeling are hard to track. We are all exhausted, braced, uncertain. The election will be what it will be but we'll still have the two months after that and COVID is going no where. I slump. Sometimes for a short time. Sometimes for hours or days. Of course I do. Of course we all do. 

I'm buried in a book most of the time. 

Yesterday was no good very bad. Starting with a bunch of small problems so small it's embarrassing to document them. There were too many. I was too tired. I felt like everything was just too hard. The day didn't get much better. I didn't have the news on. I wasn't on social media. I checked in long enough to hear about the 345 children languishing at the border and the administration's inability to find their parents. That stirred up a wave of fury. But it wasn't that. It was more personal. By the end of the day my brain was spinning with thoughts. I couldn't get to sleep. 

I mean. It's just the way of things sometimes. 

Today is so so. Some problems that seemed to resolve. I'm still in the storm of rage about the children. And I'm probably going to watch the debate. 

The one thing I know. The one thing I count on, is a moment of awareness, in my nest. A moment that will calm the storm for a minute or two. I take comfort in the way colors randomly feed off each other. The rainbows on the wall pouring through the prisms on the chandelier. The fray on my rug. The lines of books on shelves. It doesn't change anything but it feels good. 

A Nice Day

 It had been a nice day. I was able to swim, which is always a happy thing. When COVID first hit the club was closed. At some point it opened and we went swimming. The friend who gives me a ride had some problems and couldn't take me for a few weeks. Then she was able to take me again but the smoke hit. After a few days of staying out of it we went swimming anyway. We weren't really out in the smoke for long. 

Things at the pool had felt safe largely because there was no one there. This week was a bit of a worry. More people. Not enough masks. I've been wondering if I need to stop going. But Friday was great. Mostly empty pool. Masks. The water felt great. 

Later a friend stopped by with brisket from a new BBQ place across the river. I got a piece of white cake.  Not something I would normally get but white cake by southern cooks is special. It was good. I had enough left of everything for the next day. 

I forget what I was doing when I found out. Reading probably. I checked Facebook and saw that she was dead. Justice Ginsburg. She was gone. 

I don't always react to the deaths of famous people. I felt sentimental and sad when John Prine died but I was not as done in as some of my friends. Famous people don't always feel close to me. 

When John Lewis died I felt tore up. It's hard to say why with out sounding trite. He was an important historic man. He fought. He took the blows. And he stayed focused. And he was joyous. I love the videos in which he is dancing. His fight changed the world. 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed the world. Again the words I have to describe my feelings feel too small. I would like to have just focused on the feeling of sadness. I would like to have mourned. But replacing her on the court has too many terrifying implications. 

 I resent how scared and angry I feel all the time. I resent how worried my friends are. Trump lost the popular vote by almost  3 million. He is in the office because of a political slight of hand that should have been done away with long ago. And he didn't even win by large numbers in the states where the electoral college gave him the presidency. His reaction was to look for voter fraud. He didn't find any. 

The words I can use to describe him are all foul and take me out of my heart. I don't want to be out of my heart right now. I am grieving the loss of a great woman. I want to be in those feeling and not be distracted by rage. 

And. 

That's not where we are at. 

My Facebook and Twitter feed are filled with the word fight. Because that is where we're at. 

The peaceful trasfer of power has been with us since 1800 when the election was as fraught as the one we are currently about to have. Trump people like to talk about the founding fathers but I don't think they have any idea how fractious they were. They broke laws. They destroyed property. It wasn't like they just all agreed one day and life went on. They believed that the arguing they were doing was making the country better. Trump has made it clear that he has no interest in the peaceful transfer of power. I doubt he understand the concept. 

So. We are all gearing up to fight. 

We are worried about our votes being counted. We are worried about bad faith. Elections should be dignified. 

That's not where we're at. 

So. I will swim again. There will be more BBQ and white cake. Life will. Go on. 

And I expect to feel rage for months. 

Two Parts

First Part

Butt to chair is an aphorism from some book on how to write. I guess the idea is that if you want to write you need to sit your butt in the chair and face the page. I don't really read books on writing. And I've sat on a number of chairs staring at blank pages, coming up with nothing. 

Something happened with my right knee. It is similar to something that happened to my left knee last year. The right knee is the knee with the most pain.  There is more than one kind of pain. This problem seems to start in my back, wind around my thigh, into my knee, down my calf into my foot. Last year I decided it was a nerve thing. I read a bunch from doctor Google. My own doctor was kind of stumped. The local orthopedist barely concealed her contempt. (Fat people deserve the all the pain.) Cortisone wasn't helping. I took all the OTC pain relief I could. Finally I started sitting with a hot pad on my back. It seemed to relax my back and (maybe) the nerve stopped hurting. I don't really know but the pain settled way down. 

So this time it started one night, shortly after the whole social isolation thing began. The pain is wicked. My knee locks and then collapses. And sitting is painful. I'm only sort of comfortable sitting in a recliner with my knees on a pillow. I got out the heating pad again and things have begun to settle down. There's still pain. Just not as much.  

Ironically, today, when I was going to write this post, I had a relapse. Some time on the hot pad settled things down again. 

So here I am. 

Butt to chair. 

Ouch. 

Second part

I've been reading Maxine Hong Kingston. I read an article about her in The New Yorker. I vaguely remember not enjoying reading her back in the day. But I wasn't sure. I wasn't even sure what I had read. I did know I had tried to read Tripmaster Monkey. I owned The Fifth Book of Peace but was pretty sure I hadn't even opened it.  

I bought an Everyman's Library book with Woman Warrior and China Man. Loved it. Still can't remember if I ever read either book earlier. I've just started The Fifth Book of Peace, which opens with her house being destroyed in the Oakland/Berkeley fires. A book she'd been working on was also destroyed. 

As I'm reading my Facebook feed is filled with pictures of smokey air, suns and moon surrounded with read and covered with smoke. Yesterday the air here was filled with smoke from distant fires. 

Spooky. Or maybe auspicious. 

I knew I had a copy of Tripmaster Monkey but could not find it until today. I wasn't even looking for it at the time. I just glanced over to the shelf and there is was. 

OK. Time for the butt to get off his chair. 

Rage. Sorrow. Frustration.

Baldwin was on the Dick Cavett show in 1969. I used to watch Cavett. I can't imagine how I understood Baldwin at that age. You can watch it on YouTube. He is talking about race. Of course. Cavett is listening earnestly. At one point Cavett says I don't understand. Gotta give him props for that. He wants Baldwin to acknowledge that things are better and there are good cops. Baldwin says of course there are good cops (and now I am going to paraphrase) but he isn't talking about individuals. He's talking about systems of oppression. He say the cops aren't there to serve and protect Black people. They're there to protect White property.
In a recent New Yorker Jelani Cobb wrote: Policing is inescapably a metaphor for governmental power.
Think about the number of years between those articulations of the same problem. The weeks and months of the Black Lives Matter. People in the streets. The same thing over and over and over and the same violence from the police. Are there good cops? Of course there are. It is beside the point. Policing is an out growth of slave patrols. It's a system in need of reform.
In 1969 I would have been like Cavett. Earnest. Wanting things to be OK. Not wanting to feel the daily terror in Black life. Wanting to be understood as a ... good ... White person.
Right after the George Floyd murder I was worried about my feelings. I didn't want to talk about them too much. I didn't want anyone trying to comfort me. I felt rage, sorrow, frustration. And I still do. Some things are changing but not enough. Not fast enough. Not deeply enough.
My friend George Kelly writes for the East Bay Times. One of his recent articles was about a couple painting over a BLM sign. There was a video in which the woman is painting over the letters and the man is walking around saying there is no racism. It's just leftest propaganda. I mean.
Rage.
Sorrow.
Frustration. 
They were charged with a hate crime. 
On July fifth. I saw a video of a Black man pushed up against a tree by a group of White men and women and someone was calling for a rope. Again. Again. The FBI is investigating the case. I'm not sure what there is to investigate. There's a video. There were witnesses. They pulled out chunks of his hair and banged on him. He had a mild concussion. They should be charged with assault and attempted murder. NOW.
I want the cops who killed Breonna Taylor to be charged. NOW.
I watched the movie Marshall the other day. (spoiler alert) (or maybe a reason to watch). At the end of the movie Marshall is getting off a train to meet another family in need of his work. A Black boy, a child, needs a lawyer in Mississippi. Marshall was doing this early work in 1940. Before I was born. The local family lawyer is played by Benjamin Crump. The parents are played by Trayvon Martin's parents. It was a short scene. 
I burst into tears. 

Reading Deep

Ezra Klein had a conversation with Nicholas Carr on Ezra's podcast. Carr wrote a book about what the Internet is doing to your brain:The Shallows. They talked about that book. They also talked about the value of deep reading and what it does for your brain. When I say I love to read I mean deep reading. I love when a book pulls you under into the deep.
When I started reading the Library of America Baldwin books I didn't think about how many books I'd be reading. Two volumes but seven or eight books. There is third volume, which I intended to order but am sort of glad I didn't. Yet. I need time to digest. When I got to Another Country I thought I might take a break. But first I thought I'd just read a page. Yeah. I was in really deep. Really fast. The last book was Going to Meet the Man, which I did not read well. It's not a long book. He uses some of the names of characters from Another Country and I couldn't adjust. I was still emotionally involved with them. Still am. 
Both Ezra and Nicholas talked about needing to put the phone across the room so that they could sink into the read. I get that. I pick my phone up in the middle of every other page. Not every time but more often than I care to admit.
I have a thing that happens. Usually when I'm reading magazines or on line. I can't take the words in. I know in a few moments if I'm going to be able to settle. Sometimes I push and some times I'm glad I do. Usually I flip the page. I have always loved magazines and have had deep reading experiences with them. Right now I just want books.
I haven't been buying things. Not even books. It's OK. Since I usually do over buy books, I have a supply. But I didn't get any books for my birthday, which actually made me cry. Big baby that I am. So I bought myself Eddie Glaude's new book. Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons For our Own. Perfect. It's helping me to feel through everything I just read. It is also making me want to reread a lot of it.
For me, when you get deep into a book you're still sort of in it even when you put the book down.

Fever Dream

A really really long time ago I saw Tim Buckley at the Cellar Door in D.C.. We had a table right in front of the stage. I stared up at him with, I am sure, shining eyes. At one point he gave me a crooked smile. I swoon just thinking about it. He was singing a rambling kind of song. It might have been Sweet Surrender. He sang something about "licking those stretch marks" and looked at me through narrow eyes.
Honestly. As I write this I feel like I'm making it up. Maybe I am. I was fat and already had some stretch marks. Was he singing that to me? It felt like he was. He also spat on me. Not intentionally. He was just singing ... vigorously.  To my very young and enamored self it was holy water. No Covid to worry about then.
I feel like I might have gotten shy and some of confused energy was exchanged and things kind of soured. I'm just not sure what really happened. I can see it all in my mind eye as if it happened yesterday.
For no obvious reason I remembered it last night just as I was trying to sleep. I remembered it and imagined a different ending in which he came out of the club and we were standing there flirting. This memory and reinventing went on for about four hours. I'd sort of dose off and wake up stoking the story like it was the heat keeping me alive. Over and over.
It's one of my favorite memories but it doesn't come up that often.
He's gone.
He's been gone a long time.
If I was going to start believing in heaven I would chose a place where he greets me and says, yes baby. I was singing to you. And smiles that crooked smile and those narrow eyes would shine.

Elijah McClain

I added Rayshard Brooks to my list of names. Really. That list is so incomplete. It's just my attempt to remember what my aging brain can not seem to remember. I can't add Elijah McClain. At least not yet. His death is burning in my heart. He was a young man, twenty three. But I'm feeling my age and he feels so tender and so young. So childlike. He was murdered in August of last year. Last year. He was walking home with a bag in his hand. He was listening to music and moving his arms. Someone called to say he looked suspicious because he was wearing a ski mask. The police body cams ... fell off. There is some video of the cops approaching him aggressively. He reacts with fear and confusion.
I thought I read that he was autistic but I've tried to find that again and can't. He did apparently have some social anxiety. 
My cousin is five years older than I am and is Autistic. He is very tall and has eye problems that cause him to move his head in odd ways. He sometimes has tantrums, although I don't think he's had them in public. He is never dangerous. He stammers and stutters.
A few years ago he had to call an ambulance. It was the beginning of an ongoing health saga. He called his brother to meet him at the hospital. When his brother arrived one of the admitting people asked if my Autistic cousin was on drugs. A health professional didn't have the training to identify Autism. Nothing about his behavior resembles drug or alcohol use. Nothing.
My cousin is white.
Elijah McClain was coming home from buying tea for his cousin.
Trayvon Martin was shot coming home from buying tea.
As far as I know the police officers who MURDERED Elijah McClain were cleared of any wrong doing. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in the case.
My heart is burning.
One of the problems with being a white person writing about having a burning heart because of all the fucking MURDERS of black men and women is that friends and family want you to feel better.
I have no intention of feeling better.
People say ... take a break from the news. Read a book. Since I'm reading Baldwin there is no break there. And I'm not looking for a break.
I can hear the stories and be upset and go on with my life. I don't have to worry every time a relative walks to a convenience store to buy tea. White privilege means my Autistic cousin might be thought of as weird and on drugs but he probably won't be MURDERED by the police.
I feel rage and grief and horror. Of course I do. What else should I feel? Are those things unhealthy? I think it might be more unhealthy to not feel those thing in light of this on going nightmare. This two hundred year old nightmare. Body after body.
Elijah McClain used to play violin for kittens in the shelter. He thought it calmed them
He was murdered.

Some Times

I wrote a post for Juneteenth. Worked on for a few days prior. Deleted it. I just wasn't saying anything useful or interesting.
I wrote a post for my birthday. Worked on it for a few days prior. Deleted it.
Father's day is always hard for me. Long story. Actually more than one story. I didn't even try to write about it. I mean. I wrote a whole book about it. It's in a box in my closet.
I knew going into my birthday that I wasn't up for it. There's just too much going on in the world. Too many nooses. Too much hate. Too much nonsense about mask wearing. Too many numbers.
Since I've been in the Hood I've had nicer birthdays than I usually do. I swim. Get a massage. Eat at a specific restaurant. There's no swimming now. My massage guy has been out of commission since even before the pandemic. My restaurant wasn't open and I would not have wanted to go anyway.
My birthday and its proximity to Father's day is problematic. It's a day that jams me into my psychological structures. All of which I have thought deeply about and feel like I understand. I even have a sense of humor about it all some times. But there are other times ...

There are wounds that stir up the force of gravity. 
A cold that will wipe the hope from your eyes.  -Rickie Lee Jones.

We are all living through multiple traumas. It's hard to even know how these things are impacting us. We might need to unpack it later. I think I will. At random moments I find myself overwhelmed with fear. Not because of something I'm watching or hearing or reading. Random. My eyes fill with tears. My heart pounds.
I've been reading James Baldwin. Library of America has put together three compilations, two fiction and one non fiction. I have two of them and have been bouncing back and forth. I just finished Giovanni's Room, which I read a long time ago. I remember that it confused me. I was younger and thought complexity was confusion. I was frustrated by stories that didn't resolve. It is such a beautiful and heart breaking book. Reading Baldwin now is wrenching. Some of this writing was done in the fifties and sixties. All of it could have been written yesterday. Reading Giovanni's Room during a Pride month somewhat overshadowed by ... everything else ... was wrenching. I'm not even sure why.
I just scratched my arm. Not that hard. It started to bleed. It happens all the time. I've talked to my doctor. She says my skin is old.
My skin is old.

7 Years In

Isn't seven supposed to be a lucky number? I feel lucky. At least in terms of the nest. I still love it and enjoy it and appreciate it. Which is good because I've been spending a lot of time here lately.
I am still ambivalent about Hood River but watching all the little shops on Oak street work hard to survive Covid shut downs has had an impact on me. I'm not likely to shop in them. There is a really expensive clothing shop that doesn't have my size. It was interesting to see people come and go to pick up things. Not trying anything on. Not hanging out. The flower shop on Mother's day. Meeting people at the curb with masks on. The Italian place making a take out window and coming up with special dinners. It felt like a community. I may not be a complete part of it but I live here.
It doesn't really matter how I feel about the Hood. I didn't go out much before the virus.
After a month or so of not swimming my right knee, the more painful of the two, started locking up. It was extremely painful. Is extremely painful. I think it might be pain from a pinched nerve in my back. I think that because the pain starts in my hip and goes through my knee and down the front of my calf. Something similar happened last year in my left knee and after a lot of rest it settled down. I'm laying around with a heating pad on my back. An ice pad on my knee. Getting old ain't for sissies.
Last year was the year I began using my dishwasher. I had used it from time to time but never regularly. I don't really use a lot of dishes. I'm not even sure what started it. I think it was one time when I used a lot of pots, pans and dishes for a meal. And then it just became a habit. It takes me a week to fill it up. It's not that big.
I haven't been to the grocery store in months. My friends bring me food. I can't do a lot of food prep because of the knee but it works out.
It doesn't feel like seven years. It feels like much less but also much more. The mommie time was a lifetime. I remember the first year. The mommie had come to visit and then I went back to NC to spend a few months with her. When I came back the nest didn't smell like me. It didn't smell like anything. Now it smells like me. Some times it smells like her. So much of her stuff is here. When I open her jewelry box I smell her. It smells like detergent and candles and what ever is in the fruit bowl.
These days I'm just looking up from my book, out the window. The view is summer green. This is where I live. My little nest.

Property

In the movie Reds John Reed has a sign on his door saying - property is theft. It's a famous Marxist saying. His door is unlocked.
My doors have almost always been unlocked but really ... there was not much to take.
We had a little incident here in the Hood. One night a message went out - mostly through social media but through the sheriff and police departments. There was a "credible" threat. People were coming here to loot and set fires. My first reaction was ... loot Hood River? Why?
On Oak Street there are a lot of little shops selling very expensive jewelry and clothes and what not. I mean. I guess they're loot-able but looters usually go for televisions and tennis shoes. They were (maybe) going to target the Walmart. Which would make more sense but you would probably drive past a few big box stores before you got here. That's the thing. We are way down the Gorge. You have to drive to get here.
But. We live in uncertain times. I was alone. I felt a little nervous. My building is brick and glass and metal. It would be hard to start a fire. Possible I suppose but not easy. And we have alarms and sprinklers everywhere.
I imagined losing all my stuff. None of which is worth much. It's all worth a lot to me but on the open market ... not so much. For years I moved from place to place with one box. Partly full of books. Any furniture I had was old. I either gave it all away or tried to sell it. Now I have furniture. Some of which was the mommie's and my grandma's. I have dishes and salt and pepper shakers and art. I have things. I love my things. It would hurt if I lost them.
The night went by. There was a nice sized demo. Very peaceful. There were vigilantes WITH GUNS hanging around. One old guy was stopping people and demanding IDs. With full knowledge of the police and sheriff. All that was scarier than buses full of looters.
I've been thinking about my stuff. I was always so ready to let it all go. I'm older now. I guess.
Life is a bit of a shell game. I try to pay attention.
There's a Buddhist version of property is theft. It begins with the first noble truth. Life is suffering.  The next three noble truths talk about why we suffer. We suffer because we want stuff. I'm paraphrasing here.
I don't actually want stuff. Well. More books. Always. But I don't suffer from want. I am lucky.
I have to ask myself if I could lose it all and ... not suffer. I know (from experience) that my stuff doesn't make me who I am. Could I find a cell in a convent or a monastery and live out my life?
Maybe.
If there was a pool and a library.
Heh.
Kind hope I don't even find out.

Orders

A few weeks ago, when all I had to think and write about was a pandemic, I wrote about some people I saw on Oak Street. There was a couple walking down the hill and a woman walking up the hill. The woman veered to the side trying to not be too close to the couple. I don't know if she was trying to be socially distant because of the pandemic or just trying to avoid bumping into strangers. The couple didn't move at all. None of them had on masks.
My first thought was - why don't you have on masks? It's what I do now. Sit in my window and think hateful things about people with no masks. My second thought was about how quickly you get too close to others in public. Which is why masks are good. My third thought was that the couple was just rude. They could have easily tucked slightly to one side.
When I was living in NYC I marveled at how it was possible to walk down crowded streets and not bump into anyone. In SF if there was one other person on the street you could not avoid them. I have no idea why that was true but it was true for me. It wasn't that people in NYC were more polite. They just seemed focused. Intent. And maybe hyper vigilant.
On the weekend I saw a video in which a cop knocked down an older man with a cane. There were two cops, neither of which made a move to help the guy but there were two more cops from the same unit who did. A friend posted that video cut at the point the cops knocked the guy down. She didn't cut it. She just re-posted it. As I was messaging with her I looked over at the TV and saw the same video cut the same way. I wanted the whole story to be told. I want the two cops who went straight to the guy to help him to be acknowledged.
Last night two cops shoved down an older man. There is video. He clearly hits his head when he falls and there is blood. One cops moved toward him to help and another cop grabs him and doesn't let him help. That second cop had a gold badge, which distinguished him as being in leadership.
Leadership.
Even more shocking was the crowd of cops who walked past and barley glanced over at the man. The two cops who shoved him down were suspended and today 57 cops resigned from the unit in support of the two because - they were just following orders. I think they should all be suspended for walking past the guy. They have become a hive. They've lost track of a basic human reaction when you see an older person laying on the ground bleeding. Nothing explains that. If those are your orders you need to quit your job.
Last week (or was it the week before) a journalist was arrested and asked why. The cop arresting him said - I don't know man, I'm just following orders.
Ezra Klein talked with Ta-Nehisi Coates today. I've been wanting to hear from Ta-Nehisi. They talked about MLK. Ezra asked -What would it mean to build the state around principles of nonviolence?
I saw a picture of National Guard who had laid down their shields in Tennessee. 
I saw a crowd of people shouting - peaceful - over and over at a very tall man who was shouting, swearing and threatening them all. Including a priest.
I see protesters laying down on bridges and streets for hours.
Ezra- What would it mean for the powerful to practice that philosophy? 

What I Saw

Sunday I ate my fruit and yogurt. Did my yoga. Made my coffee, which I enjoyed with a cardamon roll. Checked in on Facebook and Twitter. Tried to read. Could not concentrate. Checked in again. I try not to watch the news on the weekends but I had to turn it on. I spent the rest of the day immersed. Watching, listening, reading.
I saw police officers pulling down the mask of a young man and shooting him with pepper spray.
I saw police officers taking a knee.
I saw police officers arresting media.
I saw police officers walking with the protesters.
I saw police officers kicking, shoving and punching. 
I saw police officers hugging.
I saw police officers shoot rubber bullets at people standing on their porch.
I saw police officers shove down an old man with a cane.
I saw police officers from the same unit help that old man up.
I saw police making things much worse.
There are good cops and bad cops. That is true.  I'm not trying to imply there is any kind of balance. The problem is in the system. Black people. All people. Cannot rely on whether or not a person is good or bad. We have to have systems of accountability.
I saw protesters.
I saw looters.
Two separate groups. 
I saw how the police were so well protected. Bullet proof vests, helmets with face shields, shields, batons, tear gas, mace, tasers, guns. Ready for battle.
I saw pictures of nurses and doctors with limited personal protective equipment in another kind of battle.
I saw white people standing between black people and the police.
I saw black men stand between the crowd and a police officer who had been separated from other officers.
I saw two white girls, dressed in black with black masks (and what looked like a white leather back pack) spraying graffiti. I saw a young black woman begging them to stop. Telling them they would not be blamed - black people would be.
I saw them ignore her. 
I saw people telling black people how to feel and act and express themselves.
I saw people telling white people how to feel and act and express themselves.
I saw a group of mostly young people walking down my Oak Street carrying signs.
I have all the feelings. And I'm worried about the seemingly inevitable Covid surge.
The media only seems to be able to do one thing at a time and they are (rightly) focused on the protests. Not much talk about the other crisis we are living in. Not much talk about unemployment.
People don't like complexity. People like simplicity. I like simplicity. But things aren't always simple. and we are shattering.
I don't have advice.
I don't have perspective.
All of the things I saw and heard and read are spinning in me. I'm writing to process it all. I'm writing because I need to write.
Today started out much the same in my bubble. Cereal. Yoga. Coffee. English muffin.
I was able to read a little bit but the news is back on.
Because I need it to be.

Names

George Floyd  - Killed by a police officer with his knee on George's neck.
Ahmaud Abery - Killed by vigilante.
Tamir Rice - Shot by a police officer.
Sandra Bland - Found hanging in a jail cell.
Freddie Gray - Died while being transported in a police van  after having been beaten by police.
Atatiana Jefferson - Shot by a police officer.
Breonna Taylor - Shot by a police officer.
Eric Garner - Died from a police choke hold.
Michael Brown - Shot by a police officer.
Philando Castile - Shot by a police officer.
Alton Sterling - Shot by two police officers
Oscar Grant - Shot by a BART police officer.
John Crawford - Shot by a police officer
Sean Bell - Shot by multiple police officers.
Amadou Diallo - Shot by multiple police officers.
Trayvon Martin - Shot by a vigilante.
Rodney King - Violently beaten by LA police.
Addie Mae Clark
Cynthia Wesley
Carole Robertson
Carol Denise MeNair - all killed by a bombing of a church by the KKK.
Rayshard Brooks - Shot in the back by police.



I have added to the list a few times.

One of the aspects of ageing for me is forgetting people's names. It is endlessly frustrating to me. I forget the name of people I love. I forget the name of people standing right in front of me. I forget names two minutes after I've said them in a conversation. My memory isn't bad otherwise. I forget numbers but that's always been true.
Last night a friend was watching demonstrations in Denver and wondered why the protesters were holding up their arms. I said - oh that might be hands up don't shoot - and I couldn't remember Michael Brown's name. It bothered me. I want to remember these names.
When I was writing this post I thought maybe I'd add ages and circumstance. In the end I wanted to focus on the names. My brain is failing and I probably won't remember but I want to remind myself. Again and again.
This isn't even a complete list.
It has to stop.

Hate (again)

This shit is on my mind all the time.
So I'm writing about it again.
In the last post I mentioned a story I've heard about a monk coming out of the mountains having meditated for a long time. He is full of peace and love and believes he is enlightened. As he walks into town he stubs his toe on a beggars bowl and becomes enraged. I like that story because it demonstrates how easy it is to feel peace and love when you're alone and how hard it is to keep feeling that way in the presence of others.
I saw Fran Lebowitz in conversation once. The other woman in the conversation was a very nice woman in pastel colors and sandals. Fran was in her cowboy boots, suit and tortoise shell glasses. Fran smokes. She wasn't smoking at the time but she smokes. The woman asked her if she wasn't worried about smoking in public. Wasn't she worried about annoying someone. Fran said - I don't think people understand the use of the word public. To be in public is to be annoyed.
I love Fran.
In that answer she demonstrated that her smoking may be annoying and it's very likely she is also being annoyed by something. In public we are in each others shit. The beggar wasn't trying to annoy the monk. He was just being a beggar. He had his bowl in place in hopes of a contribution. The monk stubbed his toe as a result of his own lack of awareness. So much for enlightenment.
I haven't smoked for almost twenty years. But I loved smoking. I miss smoking. I never mind walking through smoke on the street. I get that for non smokers it might be annoying. I don't really feel like the smoke in a public place is terribly dangerous for a non smoker. You're past the smoke quickly, generally speaking. It's just unpleasant. Non smokers (particularly ex-smokers) are infuriated by people smoking in public.
To be in public is to be annoyed.
Covid is different.
In Oregon we are in a phase one opening. What ever that means. There hasn't been a lot of enforcement of the rules before this. A friend reposted a post from a woman who owns a shop here. She said not many of the people who were in her shop yesterday had on masks. Most of the shops down town are small spaces. I think there's supposed to be a limit to how many people are in a shop but how are owners enforcing that? I'm not sure what that woman did about the people and the masks but it's ridiculous that she has to even think about it.
As I look out my window I don't see many masks. If people are walking down Oak street right now they are probably alone. They are in an open space. Does it matter that they don't have a mask?
This morning I looked out the window and saw a couple walking down the hill and a woman walking up. No masks. The woman appeared to be trying to walk around them. She was almost off the curb. The people made no effort to move. I don't know if she was trying to maintain distance but even if there was no epidemic wouldn't it have been polite to yield a little space?
I have often said - I hate people. Every time I have said it it was because of a lack of consideration or just bad faith behavior. This morning watching these people - no masks - no distance - no awareness - I felt angry. I felt hate. I turned back to my book and tried to let it go.
There are probably a lot of those moments happening. All over the place. In some percentage of them a person gets sick. In some percentage of them a person dies.
The governor when announcing the phase one said she was asking for people to be considerate. Has she been in public? The mayor of Hood River said this opening was for locals and not for people from out side. Is there anyone carding people? I don't see them.These "careful" openings are going to cause more spread because people are not considerate. And they are not paying any kind of price. Yet.
I feel a need to qualify and talk about the stories I've heard about people being kind and generous. I just don't have the energy for that right now. I've looked out my window too many times today.
A year (or much more) from now if we have more available and better tests, better ways to treat people who get sick, lots of PPE for the doctors and nurses and janitors and maybe even a vaccine will this anger and hatred go away? I'm not sure.
Maybe I should have taken second hand smoke in public spaces more seriously. I've just felt that we need to be have some tolerance and patience in public space. We need to know that we might accidentally kick someone's bowl and we need to have a ready sense of humor. We need to understand that we all have semipermeable boundaries and we may be a bit damaged being in the world with other people.
Now. I'm not sure.
There's a difference between being annoyed and being threatened. 
At the moment I don't feel threatened. I'm in my nest with a bird's eye view. Oak street on a Saturday in May would usually be more crowded. I would glance out now and then and see people walking around. I wouldn't have many thoughts about them. Now I stew.

INDD

My friend Pattie wrote a Facebook post for INDD (International No Diet Day) in which she very kindly mentioned me as someone who was part of her process as she moved away from dieting. Pattie is one of those people. I feel like she's an old friend and a close friend but we've only actually been in "person" for a short time in SF once. I feel like my blogging friends are proof that you can have deep and significant relationships that are build through communication.
I forgot about INDD. Pattie's post sent me into a deep reverie about my fat life.
I stopped dieting to lose weight when I was 16 or 17. There were a lot of influences in that decision not the least of which was my (fat) maternal grandma who thought dieting was idiotic and never let anyone disparage my body. Also (and maybe just a bit more fun) was Frank Zappa. He sang: there will come a time when you won't even be ashamed if you are fat.
What?
Seriously?
Nah.
Really?
The choice to quit trying to lose weight was a choice to not be ashamed of my body. They were two roots that wound together in my identity.
That choice was made at a time when I was also a hippie chick. I was making granola and brown rice and baking whole wheat everything. And I was also wanting to have a restaurant. Because Alice (Alice's Restaurant) did. I had her cook book. I made manicotti  following her recipe, including the sauce. The kitchen was a mess.
I believed in real food. Real. Food.
My first jobs in restaurants weren't high end. I worked at a counter in a drug store. A chain (mostly) hamburger place. A small (French) cafe in a hotel. A diner. A cafe in an old house. I began to learn about cooking and what made a plate of food good. I continued to push my self to work in higher end places. I didn't really have the skills but I worked hard.
I have really strong feelings about what makes food good and what's crap. Domino's. Crap. The pub down the street where they make the dough and the toppings are all fresh. Good. I'd eat  Domino's. But not if I have a choice.
My ideas about food are my ideas. They aren't universal truths. After all these years and the evolution of all my ideas the thing I feel is close to a universal truth is that people should eat the food that makes them happy. David Chang, famous chef, cook books, television, awards. He likes Domino's.
Diet mentality is pernicious because it makes some foods the enemy. It's just not a useful way to think.
I was talking to a friend the other day about knowing that I can't digest food like I did when I was younger. If I eat a large quantity I suffer. For hours. The next day I ate too much pizza. It was fresh. It was there. It was good. I was full but I kept eating. And I was so miserable the rest of the night. In pain. When I was younger I could eat an entire large pizza and feel fine. At one I time I ate a lot of Domino's.
I have two thoughts. Seemingly opposite. (Happens all the time.)
How we eat is a diet. We are all on a diet.
Fat people can't really think about it like that.
How we eat and what ever shame we may feel about our bodies are wound together. Deeply rooted in our history.
So we have a no diet day. We ask for a break from food panic. We try to take a break from the constant yammering about the new best way to live happily ever after as soon as you lose weight. Fuck that shit.
I want to write about how deadly the bad ideas about fat bodies are. I wrote about it a few weeks ago. I'm still hearing about the Covid 15. I'm still read my friend's joke about how much they're going to weigh when they are able to go out side again. I'm still hearing health experts say that obesity is a factor in Covid. I'm in a constant state of hurt, frustration and rage. I feel like nothing I have ever said or written has made a difference. My feelings are too muddled to write clearly.
But then Pattie acknowledged me. I remembered that there are other warriors in the cause of owning our right to not feel shame. To eat food. To unwind those roots. I had a hard time taking it in. And then I smiled.

The Day

Some times in the evening I sort of forget about what's happening. Chris and Rachel are over at 7PM. I am usually in the front of the nest. I head back to my little library and read or watch (not news)TV. I'm in the world of another story. I am comfortable. Fed. Not terribly worried about money. I let the story suck me in and I sort of forget. It's the way I've spent evenings before the virus.
Even when I first wake up I'm not quite aware. I struggle to remember what day it is. I remember that I don't need to get ready to swim. I remember why. I listen to NPR while I'm eating breakfast. Do a quick check in with Facebook and Twitter. Listen to a Podcast while I do the yoga/bikewheel/shower/dress thing. Make coffee and settle in to read for awhile If I'm in a book I'm back to the shelter of the story. Yesterday I was catching up on New Yorkers. I read about a much loved door man now dead. He was coughing and a little tired when he went to the hospital, joking with everyone.
I never had a door man in NYC but there was a guy who sat in a room near the entrance of my building. You could pick up your mail there. I never got much. When I passed him in the evening I'd smile and nod. He was a surly guy. Very rarely I'd get a tiny nod.
One night I was being followed. I picked up my pace, blasted through the door and headed to the elevator. The guy following me came in behind me. My not-a-door-man came out of the little room and when I turned around in the elevator, just before the door closed, I saw him sending my stalker out the front door. He probably saved me from some kind of unpleasantness. The guys at the door are a big deal in New York.
There was a story about a doctor in an ER. It ended with him holding a cell phone so that his patient's family could say goodbye.
There was a story about a guy who is making a profit during this time of need.
It was not a restful out of touch reading time. My eyes tightened.
Around 11 or noon I turn on MSNBC and the computer. Some times I turn it all off quickly, or mute the TV. I write email and sometimes a blog post. (Hi!) I make note of the numbers, which seem to be higher and higher faster and faster. Cable news is insanely repetitive and these days it's like getting hit by a hammer over and over. My heart starts to ache. My brow knits. There are days when I just hear it and don't react. I wonder if those are days when I am deeply checked out, numb but don't quite know it.
My right knee has been hurting little more than usual. I think it's because I'm not swimming. All the active things I would do (water plants, clean, cook) aren't getting done. More reading. Some times a not-news TV show. Get a meal together. Watch Chris and Rachel. And then I'm back to my little room of books.
It's always been a thing. Balancing wanting to stay informed and needing to have some peace. It serves no one for me to be overwhelmed by the overwhelming situation in which we are all living. It is essential that know the stories of doormen and doctors and allow the tears that fall from tense eyes. I find the times when I forget what's happening troubling. I'm confused by my comfort. I'm grateful for it but it does confuse me. Red alert has been called and I'm drifting through the day with no organizing demands. 

Month of Borges

National Poetry Month ends today. My daily Borges post turned out to be really interesting and even fun. I never tried to find a line that connected to the pandemic but time and again the line that jumped out fit in some way. I took a line from a poem about a card game. One was from a poem about looking in the mirror. One was from a poem about a general, which I could hardly read (not interested in military stuff) but had a line about his people following him on the day we were hearing about all the protests to open different states. Uncanny. If a true Borges scholar read these fragments they might hate where I began and ended the fragment. There were times when I had a hard time keeping it short.
I got some likes and shares and comments. Thank you. As it turned out I stayed connected to the project because it was just so easy to find the fragment.
I was reading The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks. The title came form Borges. A sweet little synchronicity
My mood has been all over the place. Which, actually, isn't exactly new. It has been even more erratic than usual. Having this poem project has been something of a stabilizer. I keep trying to think about something profound to say about how poetry responds to all moments and the meaning become personal. But. Ya know. Profound things start to sound kinda dumb. 
Borges is back on the shelf, close enough to reach in an emergency.
This is the third year of me doing this.
And what a weird year.

Line cook.

I don't identify as a chef. I'm not suggesting that I'm not a good cook. I can cook. I'm just not a chef. I don't think like chef. I admire the way they think. I find it interesting. But I don't aspire to it.
In some ways I think like a chef. I think about cooking. I get excited when I learn about a new ingredient or method. I just don't care that much about newness. Or creative expression. I care about making food that is beautiful (eye) aromatic (nose) flavorful (mouth) and satisfying (heart). I never refer to food as my food. It's not my accomplishment. It's dinner.
A friend of mine wondered why anyone would make marshmallow when it was so easy to buy. That's not something you can explain. A chef asks the opposite question. Why buy it when you can figure out how to make it. My friend Debbie is a pastry chef in SF. She makes her own marshmallow. I don't even like marshmallow but I like her's.
I was watching Ugly Delicious the other night. In the middle of the second episode I had to turn it off. It was hurting me. Watching people so sincerely and lovingly trying to learn about a kind of food that they love so that they can share it was hurting me. I was having trouble breathing because it hurt so much.
Gabrielle Hamilton wrote a heart breaking column in the NYT about the future of her restaurant: Prune. I read her memoir and have the Prune cook book. I've watched The Mind of a Chef. I really like her. I would like to have eaten at Prune. I probably could never have because it was very small. Lots of tables scrunched together. I would not have fit. I still loved the idea of it and her. I heard that Chris Hayes and Ta-Nehisi Coates had a meal there. I would have loved to be sitting next to that conversation.
She needed all those tables and she needed them to be full just to meet her bills. Little charming places that serve great food have always been a struggle for the owners and the staff. It's hard work and the reward is not economic. Most of the places where I worked were small places owned by women. Three or four people in the kitchen. I tried to work where I could learn. I wanted to be part of something.
I identify specifically as a line cook. I have managed, a small diner in Colorado and a large tourist place in SF. I feel like I became the manager because I was the one who would pick up the phone when it rang. Seriously. I scheduled and ordered and made sure equipment didn't break and things got done. But I loved being on the line. I loved those moments when the wheel is full of tickets and you have to figure out how you're going to get it all cooked. Quickly. It never seems possible and you do it day after day. I never made great money. I ruined my knees. I don't know why I chose such a rough job. I'm not even sure you do choose that job. When so many culinary schools opened and chefs became famous and cooking shows filled the screen being a cook changed. I worked with so many young people who expected to become a chef. A famous chef with their own place and their own food. Few of them were very good at cleaning up. Most of them went from one restaurant to another. 
I guess I did too. And I had other aspirations. (rock and roll) But I was a line cook.
Across from me on Oak Street is an Italian restaurant run by a family. They have one window rigged as a take out spot. They do family dinner specials, which they advertise on social media. Up the street is a deli. They always do rotisserie chicken. They have soups and salads and specials. They deliver now. I ordered soup, salads and chicken one day, which they brought to the patio below me. The sushi place around the corner has started doing these amazing pork buns on Saturday night. The Chinese restaurant where my friend Mandy worked closed for a few weeks but will reopen this weekend. Only carry out. There's pizza all over the place.
I admire all these places. I try to order from them a few times a week. I know how hard they are working and I wonder if they're making enough money to keep going.
Debbie wonders if she'll ever work again. Her work ethic and skill are both admirable but she's older. These days, not working, she has less joint pain. She should probably not do that kind of work any more. But she's been doing it since high school. It's all she's ever done. The place she was working at is a small neighborhood place with great food.  I don't know how all those charming little restaurants are going to come back. Is the future going to be full of chain restaurants? Fast food?
Last night I watched Cooked, the Netflix/Michael Pollan show. I forget that I had already watched it. It opens with aboriginal people setting little bush fires. Women catching a large lizard looking thing. Skinning it and cooking it. Something about those images calmed me.
Things will change. Food Trucks are already a way to have restaurant and not the expense of brick an mortar. Maybe there will be more of them. There are always ways and people who want to  ...  cook.
Or.
At least.
That's what I hope. 

Hate

I lived through two terms of George W Bush. My obsessive news consumption began then. I found that if I was talking to someone who had the same view as I did I could babble and rant. I could be sloppy. We finished each other's sentences. But if I was talking with someone with a different view I wanted to be clear and informed. All the television, radio, Internet, Sunday New York Times I consumed were an attempt to learn and gain perspective.
In the Bay Area there weren't many people who didn't have the same view. We vented. We made fun of his inability to articulate. I hated him.
That hatred pales in comparison to what I have felt for the last three years.
I don't like hating. It is an emotion I feel a need to push away from. There are people who have hurt me. I don't feel any compunction about saying I hate them. It just isn't very deep. It doesn't have roots. It's like the first flame from a match. All big and sparking and then smaller, softer and ... gone.
There is hate that I can tap into from old and deep injury but I neither try to go there nor avoid it. It comes up. I feel it. I move on.
I understand that hate is human.
I don't like it.
I have made (and continue to make) every effort not to hear or see the president. I do hear and see him. I watch much less news but I do watch some. I listen to some. I listen to Podcasts. Facebook. Twitter. He's there. The smallest amount of him ignites such hatred in me. I don't want him to have that much of me.
These days hate feels like it lives just under my skin. I do not like it. I am safe in my lovely little nest with a bunch of books and food and streams of art and music and so much. And I see people on Oak street. No masks. Not looking like they're related. I feel judgy. Suspicious.
I don't really know them. I don't really think they need a mask on a street where there are no others. Do I?
We have neighbors for whom their condo is a second home. We don't see them often. These days they're here on the weekend. Hood River has asked people to stay away but I guess they feel it doesn't mean them. I have never had any feelings about these people. Now. I hate them. I feel worried about being in the elevator with them. I wear a mask to take out the trash.
I.
Don't.
Want.
These.
Feelings.
There's a story about a monk who meditated in the mountains for years. He felt so peaceful. He assumed he had attained enlightenment. As he walked into a village he stubbed his toes on a beggar's bowl. He was filled with rage and began to kick the beggar. I've always liked that story. I feel like we are reactive. We can maybe change or mediate how we react but I'm not sure how much. Fear and uncertainty are prickly. We become agitated for no obvious reason.
I keep thinking back on the week before things started shutting down. My friend and I were getting ready to get in the pool. The class before us is mostly older women as well. We know most of them. We all laugh and tease. One of them was practicing elbow bumping. My friend walked up to her and pulled her into a hug. We all laughed. We weren't going to get carried away with fear. We were much too grounded for that. We had common sense. And. You know. We live in a very small city in a gorge. There were a few cases in Portland, which felt really far away then.
Oregon has done a great job of keeping things under control. Hood River has four cases. All were mild. None needed hospitalization.
I'm afraid of my mail.
I hate this.

And Then the Jokes.

Years ago (hard to remember how many) I went to NC to visit the mommie usually at the end of the year. One year she asked a friend to drive her to the airport to pick me up. She was always worried about driving. Later the friend told her that she didn't think much of me when she first saw me because ... I was so fat. After the long drive home she decided I was so well spoken and smart. The mommie thought this was so great. I had overcome the bad impression made by the size of my ass. I was furious. I doubt the experience with me changed that woman's reaction to fat people. She thought I was an anomaly.
I keep seeing jokes about the need to wear a mask at home so you don't eat too much. How hard it's going to be to get out of the sweat pants when this is over. One person, who I don't know well but have always had a good feeling about dropped one of those. Two people who I love and know love me have yammered about how much weight they're going to gain. One posted a really offensive video. I always wonder if they would say those things if I was standing there. And if so why?
I mean they're not talking about me, right? It's just a good natured little joke. Because ... gaining weight, being fat is ... always ... funny?
Really?
Why?
These are people who I have known for years. And, apparently, I have had no impact on. I am confident in their love. After all. I am so well spoken and smart. But they do not understand why making a fat joke is not OK. Not even a little OK.
 I am supposed to have a good spirit in the face of this bullshit. I am supposed to understand. I am supposed to know what people mean.
What do they mean?
The other morning there was a public health (cough) expert on NPR talking about why fat people are more at risk for the virus. She had one of those sing song voices that hurt my teeth and I couldn't hold onto what she went on to say. It really made no sense. Then she went onto talk about why people of color were more at risk and I turned it off.
People of color are at risk because of decades of White supremacy. Full stop. That cannot be soft peddled or understood or accepted.
You can't hurt me if you make a fat joke. You can't shame me. I know the story of my body and I am not ashamed. You can hurt me when I realize that you do not understand that you contribute to negative ideas about being fat. And the tacit acceptance of those ideas creates bias. Cultural bias.
Understand this. My body is considered diseased before I cough. My body is considered diseased before I have a fever.
None of the people who made the jokes are fat. I've never known them to be fat. I doubt they can get particularly fat. Although, clearly, I have no sense of what being fat actually looks like. I'm not that smart.

What Matters

Yesterday when I was trying to read I was overcome with sleepiness. It happens sometimes. My favorite reading chair is in a window through which sun often floods. I get sun woozy and close my eyes. I am neither awake nor asleep. I drift until suddenly, often in five or ten minutes, I pop up like cork. Yesterday was different. I slept deeply and, although I'm not exactly sure how long, for more than an hour. I woke up around 11:00.
A minute ago (it feels like a minute ago) I wrote a post about morning reading. I'd taken to reading on mornings when I wasn't going swimming and I really enjoyed it. It felt indulgent and luxurious. Now every day is a day that I don't go swimming. After a week or so of morning reading that stretched into afternoon reading, I realized the days were losing shape. I started having breakfast, doing the yoga/bike wheels, taking a shower and getting dressed. Then I settle into the chair and read. Often I split my breakfast into parts. This morning I had cereal and milk. Did all the things. Made a cup of coffee. Got a slice of cranberry bread and then settled in.
It didn't make sense that I was so tired yesterday. I'd slept well. 11:00 is when I have been stopping the reading to post my poem fragment, check email and the like. But I really wanted to read! I kept trying to believe that it didn't matter if I posted at 11:00. I could read for awhile. All scheduling is arbitrary. But I could not concentrate.
I have a bunch of pillows on my bed. It a long silly story. They are decorative. My bed is adjustable so I am never propped up on them. In the evening I take them off and pile them up beside the bed and after the yoga/bike wheels I put them all back on the bed. It takes (maybe) two minutes. When the morning reading stretched into afternoon I often didn't put them back. It didn't seem to matter. Even when I changed my current rhythm (because that's what it is) (rhythm) I wasn't putting the pillows up. One day I looked at the pile and ... just put them up. When I walk down the hall during the day and see them they look pretty and I feel happy.
Before the virus my days were somewhat fluid. But there are these little demarcations. Oh it's time for Chris Hayes and Rachel. Time to put on the PJ's and get whatever I'm going to eat and get in front of the television. Oh it's time to move from the living room to the library and read or watch something fun. I check my watch all the time. As if it matters.
I have long believed that these little rituals that shape our day give us a kind of continuity. Some times it's good to ignore them. Take a break. But the structure of a given day gives us (or at least me) an unconscious comfort.
I feel relentlessly distracted. Always. But particularly right now. There is something nagging in the back of my mind. Something I can't quite track. Because there is no track. We are all wandering in the land of uncertainty.
Taking a shower. Pillows on the bed. Pajamas and the news. It all matters.

Poetry Month

Two years ago during National Poetry Month (aka April) I posted a fragment of poetry on Twitter every day. It was really fun. I got a lot of response, likes and shares. Maybe the best part was finding Sparrow on Twitter. We follow each other now, which thrills me. I chose somewhat well known poets and fragments that were somewhat recognizable.
Last year I tried again. I picked some what obscure poets and obscure lines and ... the response was tepid. I didn't even finish the month.
Recently, when I was looking for my Borges for a shelving issue, I thought I might do all Borges poems this year.  Then came the virus. I spent some time looking for fragments (from anyone) about isolation and illness but I'm not up to it. So I'm back to Borges.
I don't think I'll be as aware of the response because, despite the fact that I have an entire book of his poems, I'm not that familiar with him. I don't really know if I can slice out thirty fragment that don't seem disembodied. And Borges could be kind of a snot. I think it will be fun.
Maybe.
I guess we'll see.

Listen

I want to be the person you come to when you're sad and you don't really want to cheer up. I try to just be present. Listen. The same with anger. If you need to vent I want to be the person who can just listen.
Sadness can become an attention getting device and anger can be abusive. I know that. I'm not trying to be a dumping ground. I just feel like it's important to feel through all the feelings we have.
Fear is different. I still try to listen and allow some space but fear is like a room full of fun house mirrors. Things become distorted. If I can shift a perception back to something more grounded I will try.
I don't feel a need to be positive but I've been trying to post things on Facebook that are resources or performances or funny. I don't usually do a lot of re-posting.  No reason. I just figure people see things. Facebook and Twitter are swamped with fear at the moment. Of course they are.
I was oddly comforted hearing more than a few health professionals say that they didn't know things. Comforted because that's what feels true. It's the hardest thing. All the things we don't know. And all the things that keep changing. I read, or heard that masks weren't effective and because of the shortages in hospitals we shouldn't be wearing them. Now I'm hearing that even a homemade mask might help if only to stop the spread. And that makes sense. I touch my face all the time. I don't know if I always did and am just more aware of it now but it's crazy. If you have a mask on and you touch your face you minimize exposure. Not when your home but when you go out. I don't actually have a mask but I don't go out.
There was a video in which a doctor was giving advice about how to sanitize groceries. A day or so later there was a long post from a food scientist debunking lots of it. The one that stood out to me is not to wash your apples with soap. Because if you don't get soap rinsed off well enough you might have intestinal problems. All of the information about surfaces had me spinning out. Now I think it's probably OK if you wash your hands. There's lots of talk about how effective hand washing is. In any case it is a thing you can actually do.
This morning I read a post from a doctor describing how easy it is to pass the virus. This afternoon I heard a doctor saying you don't have to be too afraid to go to the store or see people. The shifts of opinions might be inevitable. I just know they have been winding me up from time to time.
The basics always apply. Distance. Try not to touch your face. Wash your hands. Keep your social circle small.
I'm not really having a lot of trouble with fear. I am in my nest with my books. There are cases in the area around me but not many. Certainly not as many as in New York, New Orleans or Italy. I do listen to a certain amount of news and troll Facebook and Twitter. But I'm keeping all of that down as well. Because this fear is hard to sort. It's very real. It is also subject to distortion.
Sometimes I think we confuse fear with sadness. We don't want to feel the overwhelming sadness that comes from knowing that so many people are dying and so many are sick. We don't want to feel the anger of knowing that doctors and nurses don't have the equipment they need. We feel the lack of control and agency. Fear becomes a default.
I will always listen.
It's all I have to give.

Isolation

I spend a lot of time alone. It's always been true. The mommie and I lived with her parents. I'm not really sure how old they were when we moved in but they must have been in their late fifties or early sixties. The mommie went to work all day. There were a few aunts, uncles and cousins around but not many. I never really had a lot of friends. I spent a lot of time reading or playing with my dolls. I day dreamed.
I was socially active as a young adult but I still did things alone a lot. I liked to go out alone. I ate out alone. I went to movies alone. This was often a choice.
In my late twenties and early thirties I had a lot of friends. I lived in Boulder. I worked at a diner where I met people. It was possible at that time to walk to the mall or a restaurant or a bar and run into people. I still lived alone but I was around people most of the time. And. So. Then. I moved to NYC.
One of my favorite parts of living in the city was the anonymity. No matter where I went I did not know anyone. Well actually I did see someone from Boulder on the subways steps once. And I had a bar where I drank. and a few friends. But I was alone more often and I found that in gave me space to grow internally. Less input.
Restaurant work means you know people and are with people. Restaurant crews develop tight bonds because of the nature of the work. For most of my adult working life I was around people and had friends. I made friends easily.
The last years in SF were more isolated. I was out of work and had lost some physical mobility. People just weren't around as much. I still had friends and great neighbors but I was back to being alone.
I really like people. I want to be around them. I love conversations. Long conversations. Deep conversations. But I'm comfortable with a lot of time alone.
So this social isolation thing.
No.
Big
Deal. 
Except ... for the ... fear and loathing.
I have a lot of the symptoms of the virus most of the time. I wake up with a sore throat often. I drink water and it's gone. I am stuffy or have a runny nose in the morning. It mostly settles down. I've had a weird hacky cough for months now. Very random. My joints ache. I get really hot usually in the late afternoon or early evening. I talked to my doctor about it. It's residual menopause. I do not have a fever. I just checked. It's 96. something. It's always a little low.
The fear and loathing builds through the day. Too much information. Too many unknowns. By the end of the day I'm a little freaked out. Then I wake up with a stuffy nose and fumble through the morning and the day.
I am a very lucky person. I have a beautiful nest. I have a LOT of books. I have a refrigerator full of good food. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, PBS. And I have wonderful friends. I have been saying I'm not worried. I'm a little worried now. Not that I'll get sick and die (I might) (but I don't think I will) but that the unknowns are going to be relentlessly bad.
In my little city restaurants that were trying to do take out and delivery are closing. Not all of them but it seems like a new one closes every day. Oak street is quiet. The parks are closed. The schools are closed.
But for the moment. There are trees are budding just out side of my window. The sun is shining. I've had some lovely long distant phone calls in the past few days.
I'm going to make some tea and eat a cookie and read my book. Pretty much life like it always is.

My Vote

In 2000 I voted for Nader. It wasn't a particularly brave thing to do. I lived in California where Gore was going to win no matter what I did. Gore won the popular vote but not the electoral college because of ... Florida. That was the year the supreme court gave the presidency to Bush. People blamed Nader. Still do.
I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure the 1972 election was my first vote. I think a lot of people in my gen were devastated by the Nixon victory.
I was happy when I voted for Jimmy Carter. Happier when he won. And then there was Reagan. Right about then I stopped voting. I just stopped believing in the process or thinking that anything inside the beltway mattered in my life.
I went to an experimental high school in Maryland. It was a time of political awakening. I remember debates about whether the system could be saved or should be destroyed. Renny Davis debated our principal. I believed in Woodstock nation, Flower Power and the revolution.
I don't remember exactly when or where I was when I re-registered Democrat. It was because I wanted to vote in a primary but I don't remember why.
I was extremely happy voting for Clinton. I thought my generation had come to power and we were going to change everything. What a disappointment. Clinton moved the party to the right. Away from me. Gore wasn't engaging. Nader was thrilling.
I was never a fan of Hillary and had no trouble choosing Obama in that election. I remember voting early in the morning with a friend. Then she drove me to work, both of us giddy and also terrified.
He won.
He won.
And then he won again.
The next time Hillary ran I had no trouble voting for her. She was more qualified for the job than anybody, ever. I felt like she might have softened during the Obama years. I hoped she had.
I saw Sanders  interviewed by Chris Mathews at some point during that election. I'm not a fan of Mathews but he is a political historian and has worked inside the Beltway. He asked how Sanders was going to get the votes for what he wanted to do. Bernie chortled and said Mathews just didn't understand what he was trying to do. Maybe not but he did understand how the system worked. He understood you needed to be able to get the votes.
The debates of my high school days are still in my mind. There is so much about our system that needs to change. And I'm still not sure how that can happen. It doesn't feel like it's going to happen quickly or without ... the votes.
Hillary won the popular vote. By a wide margin.
When are we going to get rid of the electoral college?
From the beginning of this primary I have been all in for Elizabeth Warren. She is progressive and she knows how to get the votes and get things done.
It is true that part of my Clinton vote and my desire for Warren is about me wanting there to be a woman president. I've been thinking about Margret Chase Smith. She was a Republican. I don't think she would have been today. I've been thinking about Shirley Chisholm and Geraldine Ferraro and even Sarah Palin. I wouldn't vote for a woman just because she was a woman.
Since Warren stepped out of the primary I've been torn up. It's not as simple as my candidate didn't win. It feels like something went terribly wrong. Sexism is part of it. Sexism is always part of it. But it was also about fear. In poll on electability last summer people were asked who they would vote for and they said Biden. Then there were asked if they could wave a magic wand and pick the president and they ALL said Warren. It's about fear.
And it's about money. Every time I saw a state where Bloomberg got more delegates than she did I blanched. He didn't even really campaign. He just spent a lot of money on commercials. And they were convincing. If you didn't know anything about him.
Sanders supporters who have never been kind to Warren are all in a huff because she hasn't endorsed. I find that stunning. Her endorsement means nothing to me. I don't want to vote for either one of the last two old white men. I don't think her endorsement would have made a difference to most people.
It's about fear.
It's about money.
It's about fear.
Bernie Sanders articulates the ideas that I love. I just don't believe he can get much done. I also think the noise about Socialism during the election would have been miserable. Unfair. But loud. Listening to the ladies in the pool discuss socialism makes me wince. At least one of them was going to vote for Warren but will not vote for Sanders. She's not thrilled with Biden either.
Biden makes me sad and tired. I'm hoping he'll realize that Sanders has twice built a massive coalition. Biden needs to welcome his ideas and incorporate them. I'm not hopeful.
It seems like Biden is the nominee but there is a small chance Sanders could win. Who ever wins should have a woman as a vice president. Which would not really make me happy and I do NOT want it to be Warren. It feels sour to me that another old white guy is behind the big desk. I don't really want a woman doing all the work behind him.
Politics is an argument. Many (maybe most) arguments have no resolution that feels good. A supervisor in SF once said that he felt happy after an agreement when no one was completely happy. Everyone got something but no one got it all.
When Oregon FINALLY primaries if Warren is on the ballot I will vote for her. If she's not on the ballot I will write her in. In the general I will vote for ... whoever wins. It will be a joyless vote but Trump needs to go away.

Doughnuts

The other day I wanted doughnuts. I wanted a box of doughnuts. I wanted to eat a box of doughnuts and watch TV.
When I was a preteen the mommie, K and I used to stop at Dunkin Doughnuts and go to a friend's house. Actually it was a couple who were the mommie and K's friends. They had a daughter who was my age (I think). I don't think we actually liked each other that much. We'd go to her room. Eat a lot of doughnuts. I think she wanted to watch something like the Twilight Zone. Something that freaked me out. My memories are vague about everything but the doughnuts. They made me sick. Every time. I'd be sick in the car on the way home. It was decades before I wanted another doughnut.
When I worked at EA we had doughnuts every other week. Not just any old doughnut. Krispy Kremes. Probably fresh ones considering how close we were to the factory. At first I didn't participate but I was curious about the famous doughnuts. Eventually I tried a glazed. It was good. And I didn't get sick. Then I tried a jelly. Then I started taking a glazed and a jelly. I was all in.
One day when I went for a break there were still doughnuts on the table. I looked both ways and then superstitiously grabbed a third. Went out to the balcony and ate it as fast as I could. I wasn't sure what I was worried about. I ate forbidden (for fat people) foods in public all the time. But I felt like doughnuts were ... trashy. I had no idea where that thought came from or that I had it in me but there it was.
I just finished Heavy by Kiese Laymon. Fierce. Relentless. Chronicling his life growing up in Mississippi. There is so much in the book it's hard to narrow what it's about but he is fat and that is my theme. At one point he is on his own. Away from the people who tell him he needs to lose weight. He goes to one of those restaurants where they sell big breakfast specials and eats a long list of foods. Then he goes to Dunkin Doughnuts and gets a box. He writes that he felt free. I felt that in my bones.
When you're a fat kid everyone has something to say about what you eat. Doctors, teachers, parents, grandparents. other kids. You often feel monitored. I never did a lot of secret eating but I have had moments like that one on the balcony. I'm always confounded by the ideas we have about food. Most of all why we care what anyone else thinks about what we eat.
My ageing digestive system would never deal with a box of doughnuts. Not the amount. Not the sugar/carb combo. My system would punish me for days.
That night DeAnna walked in with a big pink VooDoo doughnut box. It was like she had read my mind. There were only two in the box but VooDoo doughnuts are huge. One had coconut on top, which made me so happy. I enjoyed every bite. The second was chocolate and peanut butter and Oreos. I picked off the Oreos so I could eat more of the doughnut.
After a day of wanting them there they were and they were good. I did't get sick. Well. Maybe a little belly ache but not too bad.

Morning Reading

We had a snowy week. Only one day was bad enough to stay home but I'm always worried about falling so I stayed home the whole week. I'd eat breakfast and then take my coffee, sit in my recliner by the window, pull on the purple throw and read.
In the past I have turned on the news and the computer first thing and preformed a simulacra of working. I usually read in the afternoon and/or evenings. Morning reading feels decadent. Luxurious. I have no where else to be. There are things I could be doing. Dusting the never ending dust, emptying the drier, watering the plants, writing a blog post. Writing anything. But no. I sit with my legs up turning pages and feeling like I am doing exactly what I need to be doing.
After the snow week the morning reading has continued on the days I don't swim. Swimming is the only thing I'd rather be doing.
I blazed through seven novels and a book of essays and I loved all of them. Reading so many books in a row like that can be tricky. A writing style that you love one day feels hollow in comparison to another that you just loved.
I took a class on women writers of the southern cone years ago. We read Of Love and Shadow by Allende right after Mothers and Shadows by Marta Traba. I like Allende very much and have read many of her books. But following Traba's much sleeker and more devastating prose the Allende read like a romance novel. I feel like I would have liked it better if I'd read it first. The Traba tore me open. I'm not sure any writing would have felt real after that. 
I just finished another book of essays. This one by Vivian Gornick. The book is about rereading but as with all Gornick it's really about everything. There was an essay about this problem of reading when you aren't open to the writing and then rereading. She mentions a reviewer who had given a book a bad review and then reread it at a later date and loved it. One of the reasons I don't read or write many reviews is the fluidity of affection.
I bought books specifically because I want to reread them. Books that I read when I was younger. I spent the summer between my junior and senior high school year reading Dostoevsky. I'm sure I would get so much more out of those books if I reread them now. I started to buy all of the Anais Njn diaries but hesitated because I doubted I'd get through them ... again. I'd like to reread all of the Little House books. DH Lawrence. Lawernce Durrell. Collette. Jung.
Years ago I was house sitting for a friend who had all of the Herman Hesse books. I had read them all in high school and loved them dearly. They were pivotal in terms of how I saw the world. I tried to reread them and found them horrible. But I wonder if I might try again and ... fall back in love.
There are just so many new books. And I'm always seeing more. It's quite overwhelming. I am a slow reader. I often need to read sentences and paragraphs two or three times. I may have dyslexia. Or I may just not be able to concentrate. 
OK.
So.
Back to the book. 

Shelving

Someone recently asked me if I had a method to how I shelved my books. I was thinking about it as I stood in front of a shelf looking for my Borges.
I have one specific goal. I want all the books by a specific author together. That was a challenge for me before I had so much shelf space. An author can have a bunch of books in the same size and then one that is much bigger, or smaller. If the new book doesn't fit on the shelf sometimes the best you can do is put it near by. There are exceptions to all-books-by-the-same-author-in-the-same-place. I have a few sets in which a group of authors were asked to write in a given format. I have almost all of the Canongate myth series. I lost interest when they change the size of the books. I wasn't alone. Comments on the web site were scathing. When you invest in the idea of a set you get a little attached.
If you're a crazy person.
Like me.
I also really like the Modern Library and Library of America books. I love the line of matching spines.  And I have a few stacks around the nest of very small books. There are some scattered authors.
I forgot to mention that there is a row of poetry and literary journals. That shelf moved several times. Downward. It was too high. I needed it right beside me. There is a row of books about food. Memoirs and essays. I have a really chunky bunch of my beloved Mary Francis (MFK Fisher) many of which were given to me by Val. I only have half a shelf of those kind of books so right in the middle It shifts to random titles.
In the conversation about shelving I mentioned my idea about reading Proust right away if I'm ever diagnosed with a terminal illness. Penquin started publishing really interesting translations of the books years ago and I have the first four. Then (when he was a congressman)  Sonny Bono authored the Copywrite Term Extension Act. It froze the date at which things can become public domain. He did this to protect Micky Mouse. (eye-roll) It also stopped the publication of the Proust translations. The copyright on the last two books expired in 2019 but it isn't clear if Penguin will publish them. I'll be impressed with myself if I make it through the first four. It still aggravates me to look at them and know there are two missing. 
This obsession with books on shelves started when I was young. The mommie wouldn't buy books but she took me to the library. I can still visualize the row of Little House books. I read them all several times. I remember Little Women. It was a white cover on which there were little squares with drawings of the four March sisters. Under those were another row of images of all the interests of each of them. I checked it out a few times. When I didn't have it I usually checked to make sure it was still there and I worried when it wasn't. It was my book.
My aunt took me to the tiny library in Fredericktown, Mo when I visited my grandmother. My aunt was a teacher and was well versed in books for children. She had arranged for there to be a stack of her choices available. She was big on Lois Lensky, as was I. I looked around as we picked up our stack. There wasn't much there. Made me sad. She went back to St Louis for the week and when she returned we'd discuss the books. I often tried to begin the conversation before she was half out of the car.
As soon as I was old enough to earn my own money I bought books, much to the dismay of the mommie. I love libraries but I also love having my own.
This standing in front of a book case looking for a book thing happens all the time. I don't actually have that many. I do have enough to be confused about where things are. I was looking for the Borges because I found two books about him and wanted to put them beside the books by him. One is by Manquel, a very small volume. I think I have read it but I'm rereading it. I was looking in the library and suddenly remembered the Borges was in the living room. Now I'm thinking I'll move the Borges next to the Manquel.
Crazy person.