Thanks to everyone that stopped by the gallery last night. I spent a good chunk of the evening hanging out by the door, directing people down to the space, smiling and just generally being charming. We had a pretty steady flow of people, and Jon did an amazing job as DJ. A good time, I feel, was had by all. (Pictures are here and here.)
When I heard yesterday about the terrible things that had happened in London, I immediately started to panic--my Sarah-and-Jesse are living somewhere in the same country. Whenever I hear about anything terrible happening anywhere I run through a mental little Mouseketeer roll call, making sure I know where everyone is. I worry about you all when you're not in immediate hugging distance. It's like being in a car accident and running your hands over yourself to make sure your limbs are still intact. My loved ones are safe, and that just makes the facts of the whole tragedy stand out even further. I cannot even make myself believe all of the terror and the pain and the loss of the lightness of steps. It's an awful thing to feel unsafe in your own home.
England will recover. I'm not worried about it. It's the people that I'm concerned about, the people who will spend weeks and months looking over their shoulders and refiguring their lives. People are resilient and all memories fade in time, but they don't ever go away.
I walked to work in the rain this morning, protected only by a blue velour hoodie. I make such a point of how I didn't move to Seattle to be afraid of the rain that I sort of had to walk. The rain doesn't matter so much walking home, but first thing in the morning my points tend to be weaker and I find myself a little sad that I haven't just had a slumber party that would result in a ride to work. (It's possible, looking at that, that my relationship ethics are a little on the thin side these days.) There were slugs all over the sidewalk, and I like them so much with their cute eyes standing out on stalks. I worry about them even more than I did about the earthworms. I haven't really been sleeping lately and I've found myself up at all hours trying to lull myself to sleep with the chattering of the typewriter. It isn't working.
I'll be leaving for China in ever-so-slightly more than a month, and I'm just so excited. I haven't had anything new to tell you lately; I have been short on epiphanies. But I am winning the fight against myself, going with certain currents rather than fighting against them. I am looking for sunsets at noontime, using small children as role models. I promise to try and come out of this weekend with a good story to tell you.
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