I whispered to him as he sped across the road and disappeared down the walk way adjacent to Chain of Lakes.
I saw my first coyote this evening on my way home from doing the deal at Cafe Flore.
I was just turning onto Chain of Lakes on my bicycle, a smooth, no stop turn, the whistle of the cold wind in my ears.
It’s cold out baby.
I could use a warm snuggle right about now.
I was thinking of warm snuggles in fact, it helps to keep the cold at bay to think about the warm.
I was thinking about all sorts of things.
I was thinking about Paris.
I was thinking about the press of the stars in the sky and how low they swung this evening, perhaps as I was coming home through the park at a slightly later time then I normally do on a Thursday.
I was thinking about kisses.
I was thinking about poetry.
I was trying to not think about school.
I woke up this morning a little anxious and I recognized it quite quickly as school anxiety.
So.
I did my deal, I knelt, I prayed, I read some things, I said some things, I had some breakfast and then I wrote.
I wrote it all out and by the time I was done, starting with the smallest thing, the only thing, the one thing that is important and true, my sobriety, from which all else stems, I recognized and wrote down all the good things I have going on.
If nothing else that above fact, makes my life manageable and contained and there really is nothing wrong.
Add to that the gift of being in school, it is a gift to be there.
The job.
The little in-law I live in.
My dear and darling friends.
My bicycle.
My scooter.
My scooter for which I am 3/4s of the way towards having all the paperwork done so that I can apply for a child care parking permit and park in the neighborhood where I work. I have only to wait on my insurance paperwork, that should be here any day now, to finish up the application. That and a check sent in to SFMTA and I’m set.
Of course.
The small print–it will take up to 21 days to process.
But that is fine.
I can continue to ride my bicycle to work and it’s just a little delay.
Yes.
Grateful for the scooter, for a home to park it in front of, for having taken the motorcycle safety course, for the entire thing being paid in full.
Grateful.
I rationally wrote all these things down.
Acknowledged my fear of there not being enough time and said, so what if there’s not enough time?
The time is that there is time.
Time and more time.
I could measure it in teaspoons.
Hang it from the cusp of a moon.
I could wander down halls lit with lanterns of time.
There is time.
And more time.
To fill the hours.
The days.
The moments.
Infinity in a parsec.
I have all the time in the world.
I am of time.
I am in time.
The slower I go.
The more time I have.
Time.
Always this time.
The watching hands on my wrist.
The call of the hours at noon on Tuesday.
The wind in the high trees.
The sloughing sounds of leaves telling the time of autumn.
The fall of time.
Marching down the long avenues.
Getting stuck in the church pews.
Swinging in an incense pot.
Red light candles and the decrepit
Crumbling of stone in St. Augustin.
I have more time than I could ever use.
There is no lack of time there.
There is only more and more.
An infinity.
A chorus of seconds and milliseconds.
Of minutes stretched between the high pillars
Hiding under the doom of night.
There is only this.
And.
In this this.
I exist.
At one.
Apart.
Final.
Complete.
In this time.
I am time.
Wounded.
Solaced.
Loved.
Graced with the singing.
The music of the spheres.
The metronome of God.
Clock at the Musee D’Orsay
Ahem.
I have no idea where that all came from.
Ha.
But I rather like it.
A little inspiration from the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by my favorite poet, TS Eliot.
I like how Eliot writes about time.
There is a succulence there and a tenderness that is also hard and can at first seem as though the poet is battered on these shores of millenium and the magnitude of time.
And.
There is a bubble of love.
That in which the eternal is always here.
In this moment.
Where.
Yes.
Mathilde.
Everything.
EVERYTHING.
Is perfect.
There are no problems in this moment–there is tea in the cup, sweet candles burning, Coleman Hawkins on my stereo, there are flowers in a vase, a tidy home, a warmth and glow to it, there is love.
“Are you poisonous tonight?” I asked the five-year old who was cuddling with me on my lap, decked out in aqua blue and sea-foam green striped pajamas. He will tell me that he is poisonous when I make the attempt to eat him.
“Maybe,” he said, “you’re not really going to eat me though, are you?”
“Nope,” I replied and touched the tip of my nose to his and wiggled it softly.
He scrunched his face in delight.
“Then how come you always say that?” He asked, all seriousness.
“Because you are delicious and I want to eat you!” I replied and squeezed him.
“No, that’s not it,” he folded his arms and looked at me with big deep brown eyes.
“Hmm, well, ok, it’s because you feed my heart,” I said.
“How?”
“You know how all living things need air to breathe and water to drink and sunlight to grow?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
“All living things need love too, I need it to grow and thrive, and when ever I am with you, you feed my heart with love and it gets bigger,” I took a deep breath, I hadn’t known those words were coming out of my mouth, and tears swam in my eyes.
“Carmen, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said and hugged him tight.
“I am going to marry you!”
“Well, you’re a little young for me, but you will always have my heart, I promise.”
And in the dark of the moon, the coyote turned his sharp nose and trotted across the street in front of me.
Trickster.
Clown.
Totem.
Creative energy.
Magic.
Sex.
Rutting.
Moon and star.
Time magic.
I felt kissed with love and my heart grew bigger and I thanked God for my life and all the things I get to see and feel and do and be.
Even anxious.
Even scared.
Even uncertain and uncomfortable.
Because that too, is where the growth is.
And the love.
I must have them both to grown.
Sprinkle a little coyote mysticism on it.
Bake it in the oven.
And I will shall have it with tea and toast.
Or apples.
Yes.
Apples.
Belle pomme de Boskop.
S’il vous plait.
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