Fog is lifting

Wedding yesterday at Capitol Park, Sacramento

Written last night

The fog is definitely lifting. It’s lifting so much that I feel grumpy and want to pull it down over me again. It feels  like I’m ready to start a life here. 

Events are making me go slow. Because of my knee pain (mild) I can’t scamper all over town exploring. Because my car’s not here yet I don’t feel completely free. And because they’re still working on the new place, I can’t move in. I am constrained, and it’s frustrating. I want to be in charge, but I’m not. 

Lucky me, I have time to ply the business part of life. I have been sorting my files and documents on the bed, and there’s more to be done. You don’t want to know the details! 

A little sign of life is that today I explored a farmers market about a half mile from the hotel. Because of my knee, I decided to take the bus instead of walk. When I asked the concierge about bus fare, he looked at me a little funny (It’s $2.) and pointed up the street to the nearest bus stop. It turns out that many homeless people hang out along the way. It may be me, but it seems that whenever I pass a man or woman with their whole life in a bag, they start to shout. Definitely not at me, but when they pass me they begin to utter loud incantations, riddles, curses. I might be romantic, but I suspect it’s to prove they ARE someone, and that they do take up space, even if it’s only the air around them. So I keep my eyes down and hurry past as fast as my gimpy leg allows. 

The bus itself, as you might expect, was full of people who looked poor. I have heard many talks from Clark about why this is so — that there are few middle-class bus passengers these days. I stuffed my dollars into the machine and headed for an empty seat toward the back, when a woman near the front reached out and said, “Ma’am, would you like to sit here?” Since I was kind of hobbling, the seat next to her looked good, and I sat down. Very soon she asked if she could use my phone. I said No. My stop was next and she said Goodbye.

I strolled the market, but didn’t buy anything, since my hotel room doesn’t even have a little refrigerator. There were all the usual fruits and vegetables, but they seemed plumper, juicier, somehow more alive than what I’m used to. The figs were a different, bigger variety. The butcher sign said, “Chickens next week!” There was a bakery booth for dogs. 

I decided to walk back to the hotel, taking it very slowly. In general, Sacramento has a welcoming feel, but, because of the many homeless, there’s no place to sit down and enjoy the passing scene. I had to go all the way to Capitol Park to find a bench. (I wonder where the homeless actually do sit. Or do they walk all day long?) There in the sun I called my friend Mona. “How is it going?” she asked, just as a long-legged man stamped past me, yelling, “Bitch!! Bitch! Bitch!” 

“Did you hear that?” I asked, and Mona said she couldn’t make out the words. “Everything’s going fine herel,” I told her. “He just called me a bitch, but I don’t think it was personal.”

Love,

K