september one, lived twice

the journey begins oddly

filled with portents and signs

all too curious to mention

and best not taken seriously

(but they'll be in my novel)

even the man whose eyes tear up

because i remind him of his mother 

which i think may just have been

the effect of too much inflight firewater

otherwise it makes me old

and possibly also dead

after thirteen or so hours aloft

we reach the California coast

blanketed in fog except for

one significant hill above Pescadero

the sight of which always kicks my heart into gear

leaving SFO the taxi driver asks me if i have had any

terrifying experiences in the air

nothing too awful i say

which is his cue to launch into a litany

of gut-wrenching near disasters   

negotiating my release i 

take my encumbrances to the welcome center

where for a financial consideration they 

relieve me of my physical burdens for the day

outside the pavements swell and

roll under my feet - fortunately it is

not the earth, quaking, but my body

set to vibrate mode by the hours of fettered 

rumbling, strapped to a seat

in the flying sardine can

i have things to collect today

some materials for class

a large bag of unruly thoughts 

a ring, and some made-to-measure workboots.

the latter have turned out rather too small

or maybe it is just me, too big for my boots

which could be another sign.
maybe next time cos
good things take time

further up the same street at Macchiarini's

the doorbell won't ring, no pun intended 

but the ring i have come to receive

is truly beautiful with a moonstone

like a drop of Bay water balancing on

a beaten band that looks as though it has been 

pulled from the rubble of a burning building

and so is exactly what i had hoped for.

i do the usual round of favourite places

get my coffee at Trieste, sit awhile on Russian Hill

wander to the park above Fort Mason

snack on cheese under the gum trees there

then walk back to collect my luggage

and drag it across town, giggling inwardly at

the comments that passers-by feel entitled to articulate,

of which the loudest and most critical, oddly enough,

are made by those who share my first language.

they have no idea they are so generously

giving me laughter therapy

and i resist the temptation to say

"schönen Tag, noch!" 

train stations are no longer the romantic places

depicted in Brief Encounter

or in films about Anna Karenina

the temporary transBay terminal is a holding room

for souls desperate to be elsewhere and

the station at Emeryville even more so

where the vending machines make wild promises

but will only sullenly disgorge diet pepsi

filthy stuff that is strictly for cleaning copper

though, once used for that purpose, has impressive 

mordant qualities

i find a tourist map and mark my day on it in thick black pencil

eventually the train pulls in and we fall aboard

i tip myself gratefully into my tiny sleeping closet 

and give myself up to Morpheus for what seems like days

though only a few hours later i awake as we are 

passing through mist-covered desert spiked with piñon and juniper

and wonder if i'm in the right state

then water on which sunlight flashes and blinks

perhaps the merpeople have forgotten to turn their twinkle lights off

somewhere else a broken umbrella hangs batlike

from a bush on the side of a cutting

in Portland i look up and down river as we cross the Willamette

looking for the iron bridge...then realise we are on it

except for the garbled announcements over the tannoy

(there is a special training centre for railway announcers,

run by somebody who teaches them how to 

make announcements in a Turkish accent. 

the same school also supplies the people for 

the Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia)

the Seattle train station is like stepping through 

a time machine into another era

or like stepping deep inside an angel-food cake 

for a white wedding with all the trimmings

i choose the easy way out

and though a braver woman might have 

tackled further public transport

rain is imminent and so i take a taxi.

the driver is old-fashioned and reassures himself 

as to our destination by the simple means of leafing 

through an actual street directory, though i have explained that 

i am heading for a helltell overlooking the ferry dock just

across from Whidbey Island. kindly (and perhaps unusually)

he only switches on the meter after he has closed his book

72 hours give or take a quarter after leaving home 

i enter a room that is not moving and discover to my delight 

that not only does it overlook water, but the doors can actually

be opened wide to the whirled outside

i drift off to the crash of waves and wake at dawn to flat calm

in the distance a ferry hovers in a silver cloud

seabirds stitch their songs across the place where the sealine might be

if it were clear

it's only September 3 but i feel as though i have lived a week 

since the month began

had September 1 twice

and will lose the equinox to the international dateline

but that

will be another story

because now i am here

re-reading a marvellous book i bought at Shakerag in 2010

and soon i shall be 'being (t)here'

but on Whidbey Island, and with slightly longer hair

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