This Mercurial Life

Sitting cross-legged on a tiny, concrete deck many stories in the air. It’s sunrise, it’s still, it’s already warm. I cradle a cup of coffee, pressing it against my lips. I hear church bells. I smell wet stone, hot dryer sheets, rain-fragrant air. It is the pitch-perfect frequency and silent melody of early morning. I’m waiting for the shade-lines to reach the ground. I stare at the sun steaks and he quietly joins me, sitting down in pajama pants and his own cup of caffeine without a word.

***

Breezing out a store-front door on a busy city street. It’s raining, I’m hurried, I do not pause to look around. I straighten the strap of my bag across my shoulder, I blow on my steaming mug. The zssshhhsssss of tires on damp asphalt (and engine rumbling underneath) whisks past me. I tug at the collar of my long canvas coat and navigate the people. Car horns double-punctuate the white noise.

***

Cooking breakfast in my long flannel shirt with music playing in the other room. Dancing to the beat. Orchestrating my spatula among eggs, sausage, potatoes. Bare feet patpatpat-ing on cold linoleum. Two ceramic plates clinking and pinking and scraping in my hands.

***

Sitting in a sunlit room in an overstuffed chair. Window thrown open to midday weather, wind and street-sounds seeping through. Legs like pretzels underneath me, heavy hard-backed book alternatingly up to- then away from my nose. A white cat tightrope-walks along the chair’s back frame. Dust particles in sun shafts drift to the carpet, my skin breathes in prickly warmth. I pat the cat, the wind plumes the curtains. I hear keys jingle in and crunch open the front door’s lock.

I feel small and large against life, my life. Passive and active, swept up yet swept away. Flickering abstractions of an idealized life in cinematic resolution.