november begins with the return of my brother, disappeared for 12 days,
depressed, suicidal.
returning shaken, crying.
my hands are empty and ache from the trying.
there is nothing more i can do.
Baseball runs over football, done with a bang, over at last. Cool air pushes against warm. Rain threatens. I turn the radio on and Steve Earle bumps into Jim Reeves, George Strait eases into Led Zeppelin. October gives way, and November begins with still warm days, the cat hiding half awake in the monkey grass, fallen leaves a roof over her head. Her fur matching the leaves, her eyes matching the grass. I could've walked back into the house, tracked down my camera and taken her picture, but it would have ruined the moment, and, especially lately, I am letting the moments just be.
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it is time for a change.
it is time to stop insisting we wear a uniform called woman or artist or mother or republican or unmarried. it is time to stop. time to start. time to listen.
labels is labels, not the music.
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i sleep hard without midnight awakenings, or i don't sleep at all. in the mornings, all the aches i took with me to bed are waiting. i bang my knee against a chair, i drop a can of coke from fingers not yet ready to grasp the new day. i am bruised outside and in.
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Last night the neighborhood wolf dog escaped his yard and flew under the streetlights - I knew it was him; he is bigger, moves differently and faster, and
my god what a gift to watch him go. The other animals ran toward him or away, fights almost started, owners shouting. I could hear them as they circled the streets, closing in. Skyecat climbed to the third floor porch and watched from above. I came back into the house and watched the last of this year's baseball, then turned off the tv and the lights, reading, as always, by the light of the Kindle. The close-by sound of an owl from the backyard, once, twice, scooted the cat back in.
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