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11.15.20

It is another Sunday, and I have not seen another human today.
It is Polly’s 8th birthday.

Late afternoon, and the wind shakes the magnolia tree so violently that both cats and I jump! in the kitchen.

Outside, it rattles. Inside, it rattles. The radiator in the kitchen, with a new clicking. I open the dishwasher, and it almost collapses on me. 

Have all the screws come loose?

I make it through the apartment and flip on the bathroom light & with a flash and a pop all three light bulbs come on above the sink —

It is shocking. Painfully bright.

The walls — so yellow!

Wait, I lied. I saw one human today.

The Amazon delivery guy, through the glass of my building’s front door.
I waved at him, he blinked & dropped my package on the ground.

I waited a beat before opening the door. “Thanks!” I called out, feigning cheer through my mask. He almost glanced back, but didn’t, quite. 

“Yep,” he said.

Maybe I was right the first time. 

I read the Sunday paper, as much as I could stand. 
I did yoga and read an entire book and thought about baking, but didn’t; I worked on a presentation for work while drinking a porter that made me uncomfortably flushed and idiotic-feeling. I watched two episodes of “The Great.”

Restless, so restless.

I want to be anywhere but here. I don’t want to leave I can’t leave 

Hereherehereherehereherehereherehere

Later, I read Rilke out loud to myself in the bathtub and it is as romantic & fucking stupid as it sounds

Now I’m here, sprawled on my stomach scrawling this in a notebook listening to that asshole Neil Young sing so beautifully about shooting his baby down by the river.

“Who are you?”             (Rilke)
”I am asking you about us.

… where is your proof?”

I’ve had my proof in front of me so long

And it is as romantic 
& fucking stupid as it sounds

Now I’m listening to Tom Petty’s home recording of “To Find a Friend” and Peaches has his head resting on the edge of Mom’s old green blanket next to me on the bed.

“The signs are everywhere,” Jackson Browne is now telling me.

Ok! I get it! 

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Edited from journal entry, 11.15.20, when it was particularly bleak.