Zing and I look up

Written last night:

I’m lounging in Clark’s leather chair in the “big room” of my condo: living/dining/kitchen/workroom.  Books on the floor to my right and my left, are waiting for shelves. The TV is on the floor too. Tomorrow its stand arrives. Poco a poco (bit by bit, as they say in Miami), things are coming together comfortably. Besides, I’m getting used to the mess.

Over there on the big table that came from Clark’s parents I have all the financial stuff spread out. There’s still more to do!!! I spent well into this afternoon bird-dogging stuff and numbers. 

As I worked the phone rang. It was Best Buy. Naturally, a problem. No washer-dryer for me Thursday. Maybe sometime in October. I shrug it off.

Earlier, about 7 this morning,  Zing and I were walking along N Street,  and I paused and looked up. Above me a canopy of little leaves was shimmering on a big tree. You know how that is -- sometimes a tree feels like its breathing.  Through the leaves I could see the light blue morning. For some reason, Zing stopped there on the sidewalk and looked up too. (He must have seen a squirrel.) Something about that moment was so beautiful that I gasped. (Really, it is an ordinary tree.) I was suffused with well-being, as if Clark were hugging me again. Normally, as you must know by now, I expect the worst. But moments like this keep happening — insisting I am surrounded, like the tree, by love,  with nothing to fear. 

Then late this afternoon I walked to the train station, and bought tickets to San Francisco for Friday morning. I asked the saleswoman how many people go on the  trains. “Hundreds,” she said. “Hundreds on each train.” Clark would love to be here where mass transit has some traction.  

On my way back I stopped at Macy’s, which is adjacent to the new Golden 1 arena. Although there’s hope for a shopping-eating-drinking center here soon, Macy’s today reminded me of the time when I was a kid shopping with Mom and my brothers at JC Penney in Steubenville, Ohio. We were in a dressing room. The boys were trying on school pants. All at once we heard people running. Mom peeked out and someone yelled at her, “The roof is falling!” so we ran out too. Macy’s today felt kind of like that -- something could collapse any minute. Depressing. I hope the store blossoms before it falls in on itself. 

Just outside Macy’s door I decided to walk the rest of the way smoothly, elegantly, no matter how my leg feels. I took two steps, feeling purposeful, and someone asked me for directions to J Street. I must have looked like I knew the answer! And I did.

Mural at the train station celebrates Sacramento groundbreaking of the first transcontinental railroad