It begins again—the morning—where crows have replaced gulls, the squirrels run gaily up palm trees, and the woodpecker raps on anything tympanic to prove his skull is a sound thing, sound and sound, looking for a mate by tapping into any resonant thing that will prove he is a good forager and worthy companion.
The eucalyptus has dropped a few limbs; I have been up walking, then descending into my usual canyon sit where the aloe has managed a pup, and where the Australian trees have rooted and grown tall.
I walk this route every day, do my canyon sit; I say ‘hello’ to my friend, Chris, at Qwik Stop where I pick up a ginger beer and walk the avenues.
At 7 in the morning, the restaurant supply trucks come through, air brakes on point, grumbling their wares down Restaurant Row, and the joggers are out with absent-face determination. I like this antemeridian existence, where suddenly I recognize everyone that does, too. The dog-walkers and runners, the bus-riders and morning-risers. Awake with the sunrise and feeling the first light of the day; seeing it, but also feeling it.
Occasionally, only occasionally, it can be lonely. Like today. I miss Janet. I miss my Mamó.
“What do you always say about April?” Jenn asks, while she does her ablutions and I have a cup of coffee on the bathtub lip.
“April is the cruelest month.” This is from TS Eliot, also my memoirs.
April has taken away three people from me, three important ones. I don’t have a lot to say this morning; I fall laconic. What can you say sometimes?
Jenn rubs my knee and looks at me lovingly, wordless.
Daddy, medium-well. 