An odd day I didn’t get out until the end of it. Got up early and went to bed early. Both times with the birds coming on. That building arc in the morning you can’t not-hear once it starts, but then can’t get back to sleep, an alarm you can’t quiet on your own. It’s one of the things I love about fall, it finally quiets down. The earth settling in. That puffy cloud with its snout like it’s spooling out fumes or waiting to be fed, a dog by the table. I rewarmed the casserole from when Dawn got sick. She bought four pounds of chicken and eight bell peppers (eight!), several cans of beans, blocks of cheese, bags of rice intending to feed a bunch of old people. To cook and deliver it all. But I had to cook it all instead before the chicken and produce went bad. It was the first time I really stress-drank and felt bad doing that. I was sleeping downstairs on a mattress in the corner but started preferring that after a week. I dove into work hard. I wrote and rewrote and reread and rewrote and went upstairs even when I didn’t have to just to check on Dawn. All those scenes that seemed so exotic in the dystopic novels suddenly felt like a dream you realize is real, or could be, or maybe it’s just a nightmare, it’s hard to tell. We had the last of the casserole with Dawn’s 80-year-old mom Beth and just decided we’re probably okay relaxing this whole physical distancing thing. The clouds are so bright, the sky so blue. We put on John Coltrane and the song Lush Life came on. When I went inside the sun-catcher caught the light and threw bits of rainbow on the walls like a rainbow-colored frosting.

Categories: microblogging, prose, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, Memoir, pacific northwest, prose, stream-of-consciousness, William Pearse writer