Sunday Journal (06.14)

Locke, California. Sweet delta breeze and a friend of a friend of friends. We piled in the GTI all four of us for breakfast on the banks of the river just shy of Freeport and just shy of Sacramento, east of the cold rails on a mosaic of a table a cut above the painted toenails. Three coffees and a water from the laughter to the lips. Just shy of a ghost train, midday, and just in time. Delta Breeze rustles through the trees and blinds made of bamboo framing the windows of you know who. A friend of a friend of friends. The sun came up like usual this morning, and lit up the sky different than ever before. I turned and thanked the door for the score. Skipped the stairs in pairs, and got airborne over the orange fat cat -whiskers like fish- rolling belly up, white, like the opposite of last night.

And so went the day, and so went the day. Kind smiles of distant friends growing close like the cabbage in the garden, and my faith in love is still devout *. The girl with the bleach blonde hair, sweet Joanna of the wild blue eyes and the deep blue seas, asks for an avocado omelette, could you, please? I shake the salt and pepper over my eggs and the slash and burn of hash and browns. I could see the whole clearly now, bird's eye view. I lost and found my glasses somewhere along the way, by the garden. A man who makes cutting boards by hand, of the most riveting natural grains of wood, helped me retrace my steps one by one. We found them on the tortoise. He was reading Ulysses and rather slowly, a symphony of hens behind him.

Joanna says no, hold the toast. Hold the rye, hold the sourdough, hold the wheat, and your hand over your heart for the Canadian national anthem. This lovely man before me, the one with the twin daughters who are having too much fun to settle down, has embroidered quite a morning for us all. Hospitality doesn't come overnight. Sometimes it takes almost six months to make.  Ramon spontaneously grabs the 12-string and sings us a song, the beaten strength carries long. I remember how music once saved me.

Confucious in cobwebbs says it won't be long. Echoes of the Peking Opera in the theater long-since closed, and soon to be refurbished to keep all of Locke upon its toes. A friend of a friend of friends now a friend of a friend... now a friend.

-KatYa

* Rusholme Ruffians, The Smiths