But then you can lose the will to write.

Joan K. has died, my mother tells me over the phone.  I've been out for hours, doing my yoga in the grove of pines, then bike ride.  Up a hill.  Then down along the paved trail.  I hadn't been on it for years.  The grass pollen.  I wasn't feeling well, fuzzy in the head, when I woke up.  I lounged for a few more hours, and then I called mom.  "How are you doing," I ask embarrassed.  "Not so good," she said, quiet. and this was her story.

So, I don't know if there will be a service for her.  I don't feel good.

I walk across the hot street.  Heat index, 97 out.  Get some groceries, the reluctant cheap bottle of red.  Chicken salad.  A Perrier, a lime.  A can of tomato sauce.

Just as I get back, it's about 3:45, my brother, asking me to do a run over to his house in Georgetown, check on the mail, then over the Fed-Ex office.  He's encouraging me to find new work, a job.  I don't blame him.  "Get imaginative," he tells me.  Well, let me get going, I say.  The Fed-Ex office closes at 6 if I remember.  No real choice in this mission. in the city heat, a crowded Friday afternoon sidewalk to look forward to, walking the bike along to get to the side streets.  I gather my things in a courier bag.  Keys.  Water.  Bandana for a mask.  Down to the basement to get the mountain bike out of the laundry room, with the Kryptonite lock.  I get it by the front door.  I have to pump up the front bike tire, back up the stairs, another false start.


A day later.  So I work up the courage to call Mr. K, our old friends back in the old hometown.  And he answers the phone, and he's in a decent mood.  "Yes, Joan had a fall... "  Several hospitals, a significant hematoma.  Rehabilitation, stabilizing her blood chemistry.  She's at home now.

I explain a bit while I'm calling.  "Well, I wouldn't be sounding like this if that were the case."  He's a professional psychologist and an educator.

I spent a day and a half in a deep sadness thinking our old friend was gone.  No one to hear her sweet thoughtful voice anymore.  No more of the support she's provided for my mom since they had their first children at the same time.

And now I find she is still in the land of the living, as they say.  Thank god.   Wherever God is.

Loneliness piles on top of lonesomeness these days.  What will happen to all my things, I wonder.  It's a break from jobs on websites to go look for the comet.

It's a relief to get out of the apartment.  The voice of my mind reverberating in questions that turn unpleasant, "what brought you here, of all places and fates..."