Author’s note: This is from a series based on my journal. Unconventional and idiosyncratic punctuation and formatting are intentional.
This morning I woke up about half an hour before my alarm turned halfway on my left side with my mouth gawping. I dreamed I was on a sailing boat chasing a dolphin that had escaped from a video display in a museum. That’s how you do it! I said to the crew as we closed in on the dolphin. When we reached the dolphin we realized it may never have been swimming in the first place. It was missing its dorsal fin. It bobbed in the water, the gash where its fin had been ragged and as red as wine. We returned to the museum. It had become a pizza restaurant. We each ordered individual pizzas as large as hubcaps. Someone was surprised that I couldn’t eat all of mine. It’s just too much, I said. I asked for a to-go box and our server brought me one that looked like a hat box with a velvet liner and silk rope handle and another like the sleeve for a vinyl record. I slid my leftovers into the hat box and the toppings slipped off to the side into a congealing, tomatoey, oily puddle of cheese.
Before going to fitness class I read some of the comments in the Spelling Bee community. Some players wrote such beautiful creative poems using words from the day’s answers and reading them made me feel so tired and envious of their talent and soon I was questioning and feeling so exhausted by my own writing and what I am trying to accomplish with my journal series and wondering if I can keep doing it and whether I should bother. I pulled myself back to seeing it as worthwhile when I considered it for what it is and reminded myself that observing daily life matters. OASIS was the answer for Wordle today. Deborah posted about being challenged with the packaging of some eye drops and hearing aid batteries she uses. Getting old is so much hard work. Court posted a speculative flash fiction story she described as never relinquishing its mystery. For me that meant I neither understood nor enjoyed it. I am never good with stories that speculate from the real world and never cared for mysteries.
At fitness class I was hoping for something easy when I arrived but soon after Andie and I began I felt myself crazed with the stretching intervals the workout included and had to work almost harder to get over and into it. Andie and I both confuse the happy baby and child’s post stretches but I don’t have that problem when happy baby is called dead bug instead. I know exactly what I am supposed to do in that case. On my way home I saw the man by the stone entrance at the start of the Beargrass Creek trail again spraying his bags on the ground with an aerosol that misted with his breath in the morning’s cold. In the paper I saw an ad for Apple’s new iPhone touting the phone’s improved storage capacity with a mouse noshing on carrots with furry cheeks the size of tennis balls and on TODAY Dylan Dryer tried to explain the spring equinox to the other hosts using a tulip and a daisy. I should have paid better attention in high school, Laura Jarrett said as she stood holding the tulip while Dryer circled her holding the daisy. The local forecaster described today’s expected temperature as toasty. I’d like two eggs with that, please, sunny side up.
This afternoon at the bookstore I talked to Fisher about selling Visting there and left her with my proof copy of it for to read. She likes that Visiting is short. Two hours, tops, I said of the reading time. Fisher wore a green jumpsuit that looked even more comfortable than my lavender overalls. Just as I was about to leave I saw William and Polly’s middle school English teacher Darcy. She came in to meet another teacher to look at books for their classes. She was using a cane and said a recent hiking trip had aggravated her already-arthritic knees. I always liked going to Darcy’s classroom on parent night. We played book trivia and I was always the first to mash my buzzer. I asked Seth about Lost Lambs. The novel is one of his staff picks. He said that the author using a silent G in front of some words is never addressed and that other readers have complained about it. It’s nice to have company. I considered a science fiction novel called The Martian by a writer named Andy Weir. A movie based on his newest novel opens today and Catherine and Andie both said in class this morning they like his work. With fuck appearing in the first sentence I could tell right away it is not a book for me.
Soon after I was home from the bookstore William and I talked. It has been a while. He said he does not want me to come to his graduation. I felt both sad about missing it and relieved about not having to travel and deal with post-divorce dynamics that could easily overchallenge me. William said he based his decision on a lot of reasons and I did not ask what they were. He could share them with me if he wanted. I told him that I care only that his decision is what is right for him and that it won’t affect how I support him in getting started after graduation. It is, he said, okay, thanks. Over spring break he and Kelly Ann cooked most of their food and took some day trips. William said he likes making tikka masala and he called Virginia Beach a dump. They liked Chincoteague Island. One day they went to Washington for a hockey game. Another day they hiked. He has been running a lot and feels he has an intuition for helping people using technology and fixing problems that arise that may guide him in finding a job or getting more education or training. At the end I told William that even though he may feel emotionally unsupported by me he has my support and he seemed to find our conversation as worthwhile as I. In much of what William said about himself and our relationship and his relationship with Kelly Ann I heard therapy talking. I am glad it has become a resource for him to help him stay in a place that seems healthy and stable.
At Dairy Queen this evening only Jasmine and Terry were working. The tall sullen bald man was just leaving with a black backpack over his left shoulder and a red Dairy Queen baseball hat pulled low over his brow with the tag still attached above the bill. A man I recognized from the shelter sat at one of the tables on the patio, leaning with his back against it and his elbows on top. I asked Jasmine about Free Cone Day yesterday. It was terrible, she said, terrible. She shook her head as she got my change from the till. She said they served 1,800. That was the most in their region. That means about 100 cones an hour. That makes me glad that I did not go. Jasmine said lines went out the door and circled the building around the drive-thru. I’m surprised I made it here today, tell you the truth, she said. On my way home I passed a lot of restaurants and bars serving customers at tables outside on sidewalks and patios and many people were still on their phones as they drank and ate. At home I smelled mulch, wet and sharp and rich, and had an email from Alex accepting my journal series manuscript. This is another good fit for us, she said. I am both excited and grateful and it may even be long enough for two books.
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Happy about your conversation with William. Certainly not my strong suit.
"I pulled myself back to seeing it as worthwhile when I considered it for what it is and reminded myself that observing daily life matters."--It does! Thank you.