It’s next month already, epic failed on the three pieces I’d planned on writing here last month. I’d been caught up first on finding a day job, steeped in that cycle - beginning with stress, that feeling that, oh, shit, I’m about to fall off of the cliff; followed by fuck yes, I am doing this, interview requests pinging my inbox in the background. Huh, I’m actually NOT a total loser, I guess. Resolving, finally, into my tried and true frustration at my incurable ineptitude at juggling - into THEE flow of my writing and artwork, my jobscan becomes an afterthought. Into that hustle and I am completely distracted, caught up in will they or won’t they, like a lovesick teenager waiting for their crush to call. Or text or whatever.
Then caught up in just feeling off, due to any one of a number of things. Mercury retrograde; a year since my dog died, which had happened a month after the unnecessarily acrimonious end of a three year relationship, which happened a week after my mother’s death anniversary, which happens a day after my estranged, dead father’s birthday; the GOP trying to legislate folx like me out of existence, maybe. It’s a lot, you know, but I’d been Thich Nhat Hanhing my way through it, breathing in I am aware of my feelings, breathing out I am calming my feelings. For real. It’s hard to stay focused when it feels sometimes like I’m leaning on a bank vault door of despair, using all of my strength to keep all of that fiery rage on the other side, keep myself zen’d and leveled out.
And then on the Facebook scroll Thursday morning. Of course it would be the Facebook scroll. A friend I know from this hellmouth restaurant I used to work at - Henry’s. Posting on another’s wall, Rest in Peace, friend. It can’t be. And clicked to his page, confirming the terrible news, and then a message from yet another of Henry’s survivors, saying he’d been found alone in his home and that it was related to alcohol.
He’d been the bar manager there. A football guy from Michigan, but not one of THOSE football guys. He just liked football. What he loved more than anything was his son. And then after his son, he loved music. He collected vinyl and worked the bar at the Masonic and other live music venues throughout the Bay Area. More than that, he was a poet and an artist. A work friend that felt like a big brother. Even before he showed up for me.
The first iteration of Henry’s. Yes, there have been iterations of Henry’s, that place is that much of a shitshow. It is cursed, I have no doubt. We’d been chatting one night about writing, the two of us having in common music as inspiration, and as a way to bring you back, sense memory. The restaurant got busy, time to get to it. He left a coaster for me on his way out at the end of the night, songs he thought might be good for my novel, set in the 1990s.
He’d be my protector when the new manager showed up. Nice enough, I guess, kind of a Karen from Orange County. She’d been on the job a few weeks, still slipping up with my deadname and pronouns. He’d stormed into the office after seeing me upset, shut the door, and told her she would just have to start getting it right. Like, period. End of story.
And then his voice in my ear over social media after the sudden death of my partner, my bank vault door, wide open and blasted apart, truly on the edge of the cliff on a months long bender, my dog then the only thing holding me back. All of this swirling around in my head, overcome with grief, thinking of his young son and then guilt, thinking of my own failing. Wanting so many times to reach out from my fortress of solitude, the everyday tragedy of kicking the can to tomorrow.
I’d stepped out Saturday morning, on the stroll to my carbonated joy at the grocery store, a block or so down Shattuck when I realized I’d forgotten my wallet. Of course. Doubling back to the House, a bright yellow sign on the median. Estate sale. With an address. At least there’s a Dérive for me at the end of today’s retrograde fuckery.
The weight of carbonated joy in my backpack, on my way back from the store, taking note of the address on the sign, I walk the corner onto the street, realize immediately, it couldn’t be. My very favorite house in Berkeley. Painted two shades of blue, a Victorian that sits on the corner, its hues blending it into the sky. I’d photographed it before and wondered about the person that got to live inside. Close to my house, I used to walk by a lot more than I do now. The crosswalks unsafe, drivers too angry these days, they just blow through without a care.
A line snakes out of the house, my heart sinking at the thought of its sale. College folx, by the look of them, I doubt they’d know. Nightmare visions of a rectangle box in its place. Or some techie paying all cash, renovating the charm out of it, with its overgrown garden, cobalt blue bottles in the windows. Ah! There’s someone that would know. Walking down the sidewalk towards the end of the line, she could be a young grandmother, with white hair wearing active wear, on her way to go hiking, maybe.
I step in line behind her, for some reason still unsure that I’ll actually go in.
“You wouldn’t happen to know if they’re selling it, would you?”
“No. I just saw a post online. They’ve got some really amazing things.”
“I just hope they’re not selling it. I love this house. I used to walk by it all the time.”
“And now you’re going to get to see inside…”
We introduced ourselves. She let me bend her ear about all of the things I love about the house, my thoughts on real estate developers, pointing out the house’s old, rippled glass, that I’m a writer and artist as the line snaked forward. And then she let me go in first, saying it would be an honor, since it’s my favorite house in Berkeley, and then we went our separate ways inside.
It seemed to me an artist’s home, the gradient colors of the dishware assembled for sale, their jewelry varying in pedigree, cheap costume and designer, alike, the artwork hanging upon the walls, confirmed in my mind by the stack of warped canvas works out on the back patio, uneven, grass sprouting up between the bricks, a signature over and over and over on their right bottom corners. And then walking back to the front of the house, through what I can see now is the artist’s apartment, taking the whole ground floor, make shift.
I see a pile of books on the floor and remind myself again that I’m barely gonna make rent, as it is. That I shouldn’t be carrying the ceramic frog in my hand that I’d found in the other room. Some coffee table books, A Day in the Life of America, that ilk. And many, many Robert Louis Stevenson. I pick up one of their ancient copies, open the cover, 1875. Interesting, but not my thing. I take a couple more titles off of the top of one of the piles, it can’t be. A Peter Pan picture book from god only knows what year, and just beneath it, a collection of Barrie stories, green cover, gold letters.
I pick them up without even thinking. And then I turn around and she’s there. Sharing my finds, hers with me, she’s delighted as I am. She asks if she can take a photo of me in front of the house and then another of the two of us in front of the banister. Out on the sidewalk, about to part company, I’m not in the habit of doing this, I say, but it would be lovely to meet up for coffee or tea and a chat some time.
“I would love that, too.”
Reaching out where I hadn’t in quite some time.
I walk home feeling the universe’s arms around me, a sign for me to maybe forgive myself.
I’ll worry about the money later.