The center cannot hold

But it will become something else... and then, and then

…a quiet version of myself. The world squawks alive, meaning I am in rhythm. Just call me angel of the morning.

The stage crew manager, Billy Goat, shows me his art that will be auctioned at Ghost Ranch. He points out the grey silhouette of O’keefe in the corner of the crowd, under the 21st-century strobe lights. He tells me he has 500 autographed drumsticks at home. I tell him he has a museum. He tells me that his first daughter has Katy Perry’s dressing room sticker on her bedroom door, so his second daughter had to have Pink’s on hers.

My husband and I have been growing through it. The stretch marks of before and the sore shoulders of now.

Lions Gate and Don Was, celebrating his wife on stage with tequila shots and her galaxy bell bottoms; turning 70; the warm wind blowing worry up and away, mixing with Shakedown Street, that sunset and that saxophone until we can melt together.

We smile at each other knowingly when he tells me that for sound check, old Don read the Gettysburg Address.

And at work this week, for once, everything clicks, and I realize how much I’ve swallowed

And without hubris, I see that I can lay down my sorries, and get back to the business of peace.

I couldn’t see far enough ahead to know that I would not have what I thought I’d have yet.

I ask him if it ever hits so hard that we kill so carelessly, all of these bugs. Why is it always the ants that show up in these notes? I tally them each day like American Spirits, like nights of wine, like days I do not make good choices. There it is already at 7:34 in the morning under my thumb, a life squashed.

I keep repeating that I did not know that this season would look like this, as if all around me others have a blueprint

Why is it always a surprise? I tally the days when the good choices add up; a compulsion of control, and the moon will be full again in a few more weeks, and I am still surprised.

Outside magazine reported that the rise in wildfire betting is skyrocketing.

On a TV show we’ve been watching, the narrator reads Yeats;

/Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer/

The center cannot hold./

A black bear is seen on busy Agua Fria St. The squirrels get into the house. The bat hinges on the door, opening and closing, sleeping; his soft tufts of fur in the breeze of the a/c.

The tourists come to town for the art markets. The heat is high, and the fires burn. I joke of the rapture when the room gets too quiet. I wake in the night drenched in sweat, a pounding head. I dream of rescuing and cleaning babies, concert tickets, and never being able to get anywhere on time. I dreamt I pierced my ears, only to discover that the earrings I had chosen were missing, so I left with the nail gun in my lobe and a silk black dress, late for a dinner party.

It is a new soft shirt to wear on my frame, shame and love, equal measures. The overflowing simple awe of being lucky enough to feel lucky and in love.

Last night I put on a red linen dress that doesn't fit as well as it did once. Or maybe it never did.

I put on those black loafers that I found at Savers and see on Pinterest.

Over all of this, I put on a raincoat and sipped a small white wine from a tiny mason jar. Before I left the house, I looked back at the mirror, shrugged, smiled, closed the door, and walked to the town. Leaving the porch light on for a future self.

We listened to a DJ play oogum boogum, which always reminds me of Almost Famous.

“…never take it seriously, and you’ll never get hurt.” Or is it always take it seriously and you’ll never get hurt?

“…and you’ll always have fun. And if you ever get lonely…”

This morning I woke up with no plan, no coffee. While he showered, I drove to the market in my boxer shorts, those same clacking loafers, and a cowlick. Holes in your head, he calls them, and we always laugh. Holes in my head. I called my mom, who I miss, and bought a canister of Du Monde for the sake of tasting brackish New Orleans and chicory. Picked up a double-crust blueberry pie in the checkout line too. The warm sun through the open window and the fire smoke, and it is indian market week. The world is buzzing. I am choosing, again and again, better things to take seriously.