Walk

Sunday morning.  Ouch.  There is no philosophy to it, just the hangover of the life lived the night before, then the nightmares and the aching body and the headache, waking in the light wondering what time it is, not wanting to know, rolling the legs out of bed gingerly trying to minimize the lower back pain that is replaced by screaming knees and hips, hobbling to the bathroom trying to avoid the mirror, walking through the play of shadow and light falling through the shutters and finding that you forgot to buy coffee, boiling water for the instant Starbucks you keep for such emergencies not wanting instant coffee at all, feeding the cat--ouch again--the bending down to the bowl then standing and waiting for the whistling of the kettle thinking that it should not be like this, that it didn't used to be, once looking forward to the day, now not wanting to think about it, pouring the boiling water into the cup and adding whole milk, watching the black residue cling to the top of the white mug just below the rim, sitting down to read emails and the news or what might pass for that, looking at the happy messages of others touting nieces and nephews and their own children here or coming, everyone writing as if for the yearbook with happiness and hope.  Nobody loves a loser.

Shot last night with what once would have been a black girl but the world is not like that any longer, she some amalgam of colors and youth and unlikely desires, saying she doesn't go outside but stays in and watches old black and white movies on TCM wanting to be in those movies, wanting to be--of all things!--Ginger Rodgers just as her mother did with whom she watches old westerns that they buy out of the sale bin at Walmart for next to nothing, buying big boxed sets and watching all weekend, just the two of them.  She likes to cook, she says, though she didn't know how to until a bit ago when she lived with a Jamaican man who wanted dinner waiting on him after work.  He taught her, she said, though she didn't like to handle chicken, it looking too much like a baby and she not wanting to cut it up like that, but loving to cook now especially fish and shrimp and coconut flavored jasmine rice and beans.  She never goes out, she says, and never dresses up.  She is a t-shirts and jeans girl and is very beautiful and the boys must go crazy for her and she laughs and says no, they think she is goofy and they don't stay around and I say she is perfect but she says I don't know her well enough with which I agree while watching her put on her makeup getting ready thinking I don't really want to shoot just drink and sit on the couch and watch some old movies with her and listen to her crazy talk.

She went to a private school but her parents got divorced while she was in high school so she told them she wanted to go to public school and they didn't care at the time so she did for the last two years, her father moving away one street, she having a room at both houses staying wherever she liked, then away to college and then not, working at a call center nine-to-five six days a week, her mother's brother telling her she should come to California to model with an agency owned by a woman he knows, he being an author of an interior design book or something and very successful, and I say you should listen to him and she says yes, but she has just gotten another call center job and starts Monday.

I'm thinking about that with my second cup of instant coffee and about the upscale fish shack I took her to for dinner and sitting there eating and drinking and listening to her stories about Jamaica where her father is from, she preferring it to the southern black culture of her mother and her mother's family, especially the food like the pork chops and collard greens her mother's sister fixes with cornbread.  She likes fish, she says and spicy foods.

Jesus, why do I feel so bad?  It can't just be the alcohol.  I feel beaten up all over.  It is something else, maybe, the movies I watch and the books I read and the music I listen to and all these happy fucking voices that are making me sick.  I find myself thinking stupid phrases like "life coach."  I need one, I think, a manager of some sort, 24/7, something constant and sure.  Too much random behavior.  I'm too unrehearsed.  Clean up the clutter, I think, put things away, throw the rest out, weed the lawn and fix the sprinkler heads and start on the new landscaping.  You have to get the trees trimmed and to call someone to give you an estimate on making two of the driveways gravel.  You need to pressure wash the house and begin painting.  You can't let things go so long.  It begins to pile up.  Pile up.  Pile up.

I think I'll take a walk instead.  Walking is good.  A saunter, if you will.  A Walking Man Walks.  If only for awhile, things get left behind.