The marbles

This is not a desert morning, but something resembling pre-fall in California. There was actually something dripping from the trees and carports as I walked to the light rail and it wasn’t sweat – God, cool rain I have missed you.
The girls at work are talking sweaters and slippers – the girls from Ohio and California and New York – where you need such things. The natives laugh at how ridiculous the notion is. “I even almost wore a scarf today!”
I feel good. I’m walking through water. I’m trying to be more social and not shut down, scrawling notes inside my shell like the hermit I can be. Sometimes I look at what the tattoo on my wrist says “put your hand out” and I tell it to fuck off. Today, the shoulder connecting the elbow to the wrist and hand isn’t a lead pipe. All of this will be OK eventually.

What they don’t tell you when you start over is that you don’t start over. YOU as a person don’t start over. The marbles roll around as much as they would anywhere except now, there’s no comfort of friends and familiarity to pop them back in place. They roll in all sorts of directions, down new streets and you just have to trust they know where they are going.