making sense of the whirled [another day at the office]

today i gathered leaves. slowly and literally 

one . by . one

from the streets of San Francisco

i went out into the whirled with the firm intent

of running a few errands such as

stocking up on reeds from the music store

 looking for interesting papers for the class at Goleta

and seeing if there was anything my students might find useful

from the fabulous Goodwill store down on Fillmore

instead i wandered down my favourite thoroughfare

[Memory Lane, where the potholes have been filled,

the roses are flourishing and fragrance fills the air]

i visited old friends [magnolias in bloom, mahonias in berry]

 

and discovered that it seems my feet know San Francisco

rather better than they know the city where i was born

- in Melbourne i have to carry and refer to a map, while

here my feet just wayfind whilst i am thinking of other things

i found a harakeke [New Zealand flax a.k.a Phormium tenax] 

that was raining flowers and 

the universe kindly provided a clean baggie passing on the breeze

[helpfully labelled "buttons"]

 

i found my heart high on a hill

admittedly a little tubbier than when i last saw it

and a bit ratty around the edges

but still quite serviceable

despite being wind-dried and a bit flat

i also found a nice clean piece of cotton string.

i very nearly filled a book with graphite rubbings

[thanks Roz for making me buy that bargain-priced 

book of Khadi papers in Melbourne the other day]

 

i sat awhile on the Greenwich steps by Russian Hill

where some thoughtful person has installed a small

Japanese-style water feature, and

listened to the parrots chattering in the treetops

- they call them the parrots of Telegraph Hill

but [like me] they like more than one hill in San Francisco

     

wandered past the Asian tailor

who has been closed for at least 36 years

- checked that the windows remained unchanged

it is good to have a few constants in life

   

and went to have an Africano

[to my mind the best coffee in San Francisco]

in my favourite haunt near Washington Square

 

where i couldn't help but overhear

the woman at the next table

extolling the virtues of something she'd recently consumed

stating in rapturous tones that it had been

"godlike, made by the ancients"

and then bizarrely opening a discussion about

"that artist, you know, the Alabama mumbler"

which reminded me of another "mumbler"

encountered [also in San Francisco]

on the shady side of 35 years ago when i kept spotting a somewhat eccentrically dressed woman [yes, yes, i know that's rich coming from me] who would appear as if by magic, mumbling something unintelligible, scrape brickdust or paintflakes or stonechips carefully from a wall, place the harvest in a small plastic bag and secrete is about her person.

i thought she was a fruitloop.

and now i am her. 

pottering about the streets

gathering leaves and dried berries from the pavements

singing to myself

enjoying another day at the office.

+++ sharp-eyed readers may notice the publication date on this blog is a bit kerfoops at present. it's because i am [literally and metaphorically] wandering yesterdayland while my MacBook is all set for the whirled of tomorrow, on Australian time +++