IT'S SO THEY CAN BE FOUND

Lucian Freud – "The Sleeping Cat" (1944)

"We take it for granted that we all have our own story to tell, and that story is what makes us, us.  We can take it equally for granted that every single person we pass on the street has a complex interior world in their heads that we know nothing of."

— Stephen Prickett, Secret Selves: A History of Our Inner Space, New York, Bloomsbury, 2021

Saying goodmorning to someone in a text, I also wrote "Another day on the Catherine Wheel." Although I am not yet awake enough to really assess my level existential despair and/or to get anxious about the day to come. The coffee tastes good. Vera is wiggling around on the concrete outside. There's a plan afoot for Domineers yoga, and I think I am going to be teaching my nextdoor neighbor some yoga this evening as well. I will have to put some thought towards that.

David, my brother, has graciously consented to Janet sitting for two weeks, so it looks as if the New York trip is on, in the neighborhood of 10/27 to 11/9. I admit to a great deal of anxiety about it. That is understandable after not having been there for two and a half years, most of it spent in semi-seclusion. Is semi-seclusion a thing or are you either secluded or not?

So evening yoga didn't happen due to a sprung wire in a youngster's mouth and ensuing emergency trip to orthodontist. Stationery bike happened and a light yoga session with the Domineers happened, too. 

I am restless in general and nervous, almost afraid, about going to NY which is not for a month. Maybe the very idea of a trip is such a big step after being in California for so long. I worry that I won't have anything to talk about to my friends. Well, maybe I will get to go to some pretty places and read. Plus, I think I will get to meet my great niece! 

Mom and I have to get up early Shirley to get to her monthly eye injection for her macular degeneration. I made her shower tonight as she has little concept of time anymore and everything takes longer than she thinks it does. She may well NOT be the only one for whom this is true.

NIGHTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

I carry joy as a choir sings,

but quietly as the dark

carols. To keep the wind away

so the hidden ones will come

out into the street and add

themselves to this array of

stars, constellations and moon.

I notice the ones in pain

shine more than the others.

It’s so they can be found,

I think. Found and harbored.

— Linda Gregg, The Sacraments of Desire, Graywolf Press, St. Paul, 1995