DMA (Daily Mood Average): 7.5
After a few months of deprivation, I joined a yoga studio again. This one is great because they have a formula similar to Bikram but condensed to one hour and with much livelier music. I started on Wednesday (worm moon day) and felt the usual dizziness and started to swoon from the heat and my rapidly pulsating heart. On Thursday I didn’t have any caffeine in the morning and managed to get through the whole flow without taking any breaks. Then I rushed over to Mike’s to sit there staring at a Powerpoint presentation about what happens during the adult baptism into the Catholic church. The kids and I went to the park where Frances insisted I push her on the swing without a harness over and over. She has the sweetest, most cherubic cheeks, a little red bow for lips, and gorgeous, deep-set, downward sloping eyes ringed in thick lashes. Her hair looks like Julie Andrew’s cut from Sound of Music. Of course I had to stop pushing periodically to kiss the soft spot between her shoulder and throat!
Before leaving for the park I found a blank envelope wedged into our front doorway. Someone had scrawled lightly near the bottom right. I could only make out the first few words: I’m sorry to say… I used content’s context to figure out the rest. I’m sorry to say we lost Carol. Carol was the white-haired woman who lives between the Catholic Vietnamese couple and the bachelor. Often when we went for walks to the park, I’d notice the parted living room windows, the dining room chair, the utter conscientiousness of the interior space, everything orderly and tidy like my in-laws space. I would sometimes even see her sitting in her wheelchair back at the dining room table, which was angled to be almost perfectly aligned with the windows overlooking the street. She appeared small but still full of vitality. And that’s what the note said, the note with her picture in it giving us details on the funeral. To the day she died she breathed life to its expansive fullest. No drooping, no listlessness, no alarming quietude. I thought about how I had never gotten to say hello to her. All the other neighbors I’ve had chats with through my walks.
It’s strange. I told myself once that I couldn’t leave this cul-de-sac until I got to meet each person on it. Now I expect we shall be departing for good this summer.
On Wednesday night we ate at Burger Lounge in Los Olivos. Thursday evening we went to Olive Express. I sat in the booth taking photos of my displeasing mug, kissing the trolley pin on my lapel. Oh won’t you be my neighbor.
H.M.K. 