Truth is in the Place Where You Find It

    Today's morning was smoother and glassy enough for mirrored reflections from the lower echelon of the lagoon to give me a worthy pause.

    It hurts. I'm being wary of skipping the leg so that left foot is on the drop beat, but it's gotta happen. It's dominance was established long before institution told me that's the way it's supposed to be. 

    I was offered a pretty cool job after my explanations for why not to fear that scary sounding snake on the trail, around the bend. I've found that danger resides in reaction because you can't really, successfully, fault surprise.

    Doctrinally or foundationally born, I'd like to participate with you as we pass one another. First, I'm going to feel it out. I am confident and adept. I've finally gotten to define my own Rules of Engagement. I'm a first strike smiler now. Any passive reaction warrants an add on and the moment is always fleeting. I'll wave, tip my cap, say pleasantries, maybe look directly into your eyes. The really good shit earns a conversation from all sides. I fear those with no reactions for they're either more focused or less human or both. We always survive our brief encounters, otherwise you wouldn't know it. 

    A child too young to ever remember that her Mother gave her a choice one day from an amazingly graceful place stumbles now so she might not have to later and I'm appreciative. 

    I find my own metaphor when walking barefooted in this shore at the tideline because, every time I look behind me, my footsteps are already forgotten and washed away.

    That awkward Egret with their mohawk and feigned apprehensions will still snare their catch. I see myself there, in their funky ass walk. Good on you, peer.

    And of all of these indiscernible things, well, I've found beauty in the maths I see everyday, but won't ever quite understand. 

    If you practice until you fail less, you can never lose. And if you point out a gorgeous scallop to a sea searching kid, it will be appreciated in a way that is impossible to forget. 

Elapses' Ellipses

    If you care, there's a difference between where apostrophes live, but let's not talk about commas.

    The peripheral panorama is expectedly breathtaking because I can see the cars that look wrong for being somewhere over there, something near me is chirping, I can wonder if that place that I stood at once in the distance and a few times before, was and/or always was browned like that, I might come to peace with the idea that this bench wasn't here when I was not only able, but willing to run, and that I get to see more since I'm only halfway home. 

    Fuck yeah.

Seaport to OB

    It's good to leave North County every now and again. A date with the East Village and Section 107 called me and I went after a Yoga class paid for by tax dollars earned in the shadow of Magnolia trees unadorned yet with their beautiful white bowls. The game was good unless the score is the only consideration. "¿Quieren algo más?," I asked some surprised people. I was meant to go home but found my way into an interesting convo with an admitted couple of black gay wannabes and missed the last train up.

    So, Little Italy has a Farmer/Artisan Market on Wednesday mornings even when it's cloudy here in July. If you aren't prepared during a glance North on India, you might startle at if that plane is about to crash into something or if what you're seeing is real. 

    Sun is decidedly intermittent. Shirts off anyway. I always get distracted by all of the different butterflies fluttering gently about. All the tourists and tattoos are out. Should you ever need a bracelet with your name sewed into it in five minutes or less, I may be able to offer a recommendation. My two ink chiseled names only others can see carry the weight of the rest of my friends that died for their involvement in our club. Good thing, too. I don't think that I'm tall or proud enough for all of them to fit, and I'm reasonably tall. 

    The absolute coolest shitter proclaims here near the Embarcadero and you'd never know what it was but inspiring if you weren't pierside or inside of it.

    What is that? Smells like a wronged flower. Oh, it's that dude I passed and is now passing me, since I've sat. Maybe a long, heavy, leather trench coat is appropriate elsewear. What do I know other than I'll wait before my next deep breath. 

    I smile at myself as we walk astride rectangular sidewalk patches aside mirrored glass buildings where I see that my quirk is familiar like in the movies. I'm starting to notice that Resting Grin Face is becoming default and it pays off in subtle appreciated acknowledgements along the way. 

    I feel cautiously suspicious in the adjective way with North Island in the Bay to my left and the too small but surprisingly coming along airport expansion on the right. No trolley line construction is in sight, though.

    I'd like to try writing left-handed. Don't know exactly why, but it can't be worse than my scribble is now.  

    Maybe for a half-mile or so, a pair of other pedestrians and I did some leapfrogging. I was only likening it to alternate bounding without the overwatch since my observations serve a different purpose now. When we were all finally stopped together at one of the Coastie intersections, I couldn't help but mention aloud that it appeared as if we were destined to cross paths at least a few more times, earning the opportunity for the best kind of therapy: Unrecognized in real time. 

    Older than my Dad, she walked better than either he or I and could somehow ask questions that didn't feel inquisitive. She made me think that all we've really got are our stories. Liberty Station set us back on our separate again paths, though I like imagining that we'll be a little less alone, ambos, whichever way we go. I will be.

    I'm a blue-eyed, brown-haired, thin (again), mostly Polish and various European mutt, born in Fresno, raised in the O' with some Confederate roots, apparently. I collected cans direct from the complex' dumpsters for discretionary cash as a kid but also ate everyday. I came of age in Mesopotamia. Am I allowed to love in these stories? Am I supposed to feel like I belong to and with them? Have(n't) I (y)earned (for) these conversations I'm choosing to find? Each other's utterance I have the pleasure to hear makes me better now and when anywhere the wind blows me. 

    Damn, I love California for many of the things that disappoint me about Texas. And vice versa, but you can only be in one place at one time. 

    Uniformed Sailor over there. Bus stop dismount. Alone with bags in hand and wearing a walking boot. Fuckin' a, really?! Where are her leaders? Perhaps she's just stubborn like me. I get it, wouldn't recommend it. I'm hypocritical like that. 

    The full peninsular route was going to be too damned long, so I went uphill for a bit. A woman I loved and love still in a different way for having raised our most amazing gift once thought that this state was flat until I brought her here. Everything is that way until you walk it, feel it, breathe it, see it, be a part of it, allow it. Shapes take shape at a slower pace.

    That house up here has a little bridge in it's backyard; a pretty, impressive consolation given someone rather richer built an ADU ahead of what was once it's porch view. There is such a thing as free lemons. I've seen them by going this way today. My start point is observable and doesn't seem as far away as it appears even though nothing is further away than the place that you're trying to get to. 

    And then? There's the coast again. If you look long enough and beyond the guy sleeping on the stairs there, you might actually see something truly wondrous. 

    I reward my journey with some proper Hodad's at the window street seat inside, refueling with a Guido and beer. I was. About to head to Old Town to catch the Coaster but a pretty girl walked in front of me with a minimalist Magnolia flower tattoo that she can't see. I'll still find my way back home, but not until I write most of this from the shore-side park, adjacent to a very public acrobat class and their pounding live rhythmic drum soundtrack. Sheriffs be damned. 

   

Motorcycle DriveBy

reminds me of

Che Guevara

Ask me why

Assumptions

    I might want to ask Hank Green why the western horizon on the Pacific Ocean from Cardiff by the Sea appears subtly curvy when nothing obscures the view of it, but I'm afraid of social media and of being right. Sugar ant pathways look like recently tear stained cheeks. Construction or electrical symbols painted on the tarmac look like a tank icon that any Battle Staffer might be jealous of and I refuse to look up what it means in this way. The coolest bugs don't live here, which I lament, but am glad for when I will see them again. 

    I've already walked this way many times and each of them were new. The only things that we truly know are those we observe and perspective will fuck with understanding all day, every day. Sometimes, I see all of the animals doing weird ass things that probably aren't all that too weird to them. A dude maybe didn't respond because he's more disciplined than I am when writing a poem in my head. I did write this from the point of a stylus while I forged ahead, though. I only digitally erased once. 

    I once drew up a collage of all the unit crests from those I participated with. It was supposed to be a tattoo. I'm glad that I couldn't afford it when I had the idea and now it lives just inside of me. The Army calls them DUIs, which probably is more appropriate than bureaucracy will admit.

    These children for tomorrow sound like today's politicians: whiny and irrelevant to passers-by. I just watched a bee lookin' thing, more bumble than honey or meat, dive into a gopher or snake or squirrel hole in the ground, all nonchalant like, seemingly indifferent while I paused in awe, for I haven't had seen such a sight before. These days, that's rare. I thought that that dude was holding a leash but it was just his phone. I really want to walk again down the trail, high with my friend, because I can't successfully text these memories.

    Once you grow up enough to properly realize that mothers are hot(ter), too, the pool expands and yesterday was wrong. That kid just called that guy beside him  'Grandpa.' He appears to be near my age. "I like your hat." I didn't, but had a minimum of two sentences in repose should he answer (he didn't) in that way.

    I would call people who mostly, understandably, wouldn't answer, to tell a story or, maybe, say some words, but now I write them down. It's better this way, though I'm always unsure. I'm remembering now why I've always liked this track. It's awesome how I remember it.

    I may have never seen such emasculation as a dude pushing a stroller uphill beside his other with only a pup being carried inside. I realize that every time I see a Prius, I think of a nursery rhyme. They've already become endangered and I'll see a weird cybertruck each Tuesday. I wonder if anyone sees me shaking my head, briefly.