•gratitude, and a sort of California barometer, revs'd•

Just grateful for all of it. The whole, beautiful mess.

Listening to Frances Ford Coppola speak through the radio and making leeky, appley greens with egg for breakfast, I am reminded: how small, this world. Absurdly small. I don't know this guy, but thirty years ago, he held my cousin when she was a baby. Tomorrow, I'm going to hold her hello, in Pennsylvania. Charlotte lives in New York, but we rendezvous in other places. "How'd you get here from Maine?" my son asked a friend of ours, just last week. He'd mistaken her for Charlotte, and no wonder. She's in the air, as is the way with certain people at certain times of the year. Tomorrow, I will be in the air.

What a tangled fascination, this life. What luck there is in the world, and what horror. Our town has made international news of late, thanks to an unpleasant decision by a police officer and various higher-ups. Like getting shampoo in your eyes only the shampoo is hot-sauce, I explained to Penn. He caught me watching the video of the row of cross-legged students in sweatshirts, the casual lieutenant spraying red into their faces. "Is those police men?" he asked. "Are they making bad decisions?"

The stories we are telling. The food we are putting in our mouths. The weather, how large it feels. How we go on, about our days, remaining calm. The moon can sweep us off our feet at any moment. The air can change. We can get dropped. At any moment.

Everything matters. Movement, especially, is key. xox