Mixed Bag Lesson

That which I cannot change, teach me to love.

That which I cannot stand, may I be able to change.

Of neither, may I be able to walk away from without remorse.

Library break.

It was getting hot for a moment there, and though I watched people bask in the sun it only brought a shudder down my back. Driest since 70-something, said a newsreporter, but it's winter, goddammit, I just want some fucking rain, some cold—it doesn't snow in the Bay Area, is that too much to fucking ask for?

We are lucky to have the ocean and the bay.

Yesterday clouds drifted over and in, like cotton combed over our heads, and though there are no sheets of rain to tuck me in to sleep, I saw earthworms this morning. I haven't seen earthworms since returning to California, most of it to do with living in the city completely last year through the rainy season, and here they are to herald what I can only hope is an oncoming deluge of water.

Working in this library is nothing but a dust bath, bad for the lungs. I see the last thirty years of the life of this organization tumble into my lap, faces of familiar staff long departed (and some still here) staring up at me; I even see my own squashy childhood face flash forward in the shuffle of photos.

So this is truly history, something inescapable. One may stand alone but we are all in it together, and in a few blinks you see what footprints you left behind. Or, if you a clever little thing, those footprints you have swept up as you passed by.