Entry 79

Paint it Black, Not Dark Yet, gladiolas, pears, birthdays

It was my grandfather’s birthday and I called him as I walked through the hills at twilight. They’d already had dinner, they’d had dessert, which was probably not cake, but fruit from the trees in the yard, pears probably. “Oh this is wonderful,” he said. “I’ve had so much attention it’s going to my head.” In that case I better hang up I said, but I’ll see you soon. “That’s right,” he replied. 87 and holding he said. With the more or less living he said. More or less, I laughed, exactly. The neighborhood as I walked was busy but a little muted, as if everyone might be holding their breath, listening for something, and the sky was a lilac that felt close to the earth. My legs were inexplicably tired. I walked behind a girl in denim with long dark braids like mine and wondered if the person walking some distance behind me also was a girl with long braids and denim, and I watched the light leave and felt the air grow cool and observed how my definitions of all things are in a constant state of change. At home, I fell asleep early. I slept fitfully and long and woke up on the edge of my bed with Paint it Black stuck in my head. Working through the possibilities of why that particular song presented itself I put on a tee shirt that says “cats are supreme” and stumbled down the block for heavy cream for the entire pot of coffee I would be drinking as soon as I got back and wondered as I passed the shape of a man under filthy blankets sleeping on the sidewalk where the line is between him and me - is there one, should there be.

“I’ve become a full-blown gladiola lover” Stella wrote me, since we saw the Marnie matinee at the Egyptian and sat in front of red gladiolas and champagne at Musso’s, I know what she means, and I write “gladiolas” and “pink nail polish” on my to-do list, because this is Los Angeles, dammit. We’re crying in our respective ways and places to Not Dark Yet because the sun is out, and we’re right on the edge now where we’re meant to be, locked in the struggle, waiting for some kind of magic to present itself finally, waiting to be on the other side of change while holding on to it tightly, very tightly, trying to stop it altogether. Some things are simply meant to be; some things happen anyway. Everything can be true at once.

I am dizzy from the coffee - it was too much - but tonight we’ll all be gathered in the tiny bookstore together and for that I am grateful, and the sun has filled the room I’m in, and it’s so bright that the yellows in here are almost white.