Apparently, I am the Girl in Everyday Ramblings

Random photo from a walk on Tuesday when it was dry. Yay.

It is supposed to be dry again today. Nice. I am getting pretty comfortable in my rain pants though, so it feels a bit easier to be out and about. What still feels like a hassle is a rain hat, glasses, and a mask. This is if I am going somewhere where I am going to be masked, or on the bus. I have started carrying my hearing aids with me because it is too much with the glasses and mask and hat to also manage the hearing aids.

Yesterday morning after class, I did that, put my hearing aids in my bag and went off to the chic new coffee space, hostel, hotel, workspace, across the river to meet with what I thought was going to be a small group of board members of this nonprofit I have been asked to join.

I get there and find Walt (the facilitator) alone at a big table with high chairs in a back room on his laptop. He says hi and enthuses over me being in person instead of on Zoom where I have been interacting with him for the last year. I did meet him in person many years ago in a workshop on storytelling. Mrs. and Mr. Sherlock took a workshop with him on Hamlet around the same time. There is no way he would remember me from back in the day.

Anyway, people start showing up. Lovely warm people. We are sharing our Chinese astrological signs, with the New Year coming up. Walt is a Rabbit, and this is the year of the Rabbit. Or making them up, one person said he was a kangaroo, another an aardvark. Eventually everyone who is coming was there and they were all men. There was one guy who was my age, 68 but everyone else was older and had known Walt in some capacity for many years. 8 old men, and me.

Walt said, “You’re the girl”. And so I was.

This isn’t the board. One of the members were there but there are only four board members. This is apparently a group that was meeting before the pandemic, all artists in some way. Actors, painters, poets. They all knew each other except me and the lovely man sitting next to me. So, Walt asked me to tell them my life story. You know, the pocket version.

btw, I was the only person in the room wearing a mask.

I did it. I left out big chunks of things but skimmed though high points. Then they asked me to ask them a question that each would answer. I asked them what they considered to be their spiritual focus. So that was cool, I got a flavor of each of them. Turns out I know one of them from the neighborhood. I have chatted with him on occasion about the history here. I knew he was an artist. He didn’t remember me.

Then the fellow next to me told us a little about himself in a quite rambling way that involved radical politics at our local state college, a gold mine in Northern California, running, many marathons, (a fast 10K time was mentioned after a query) and Shape Note Singing. The Shape Note Singing was where there was a lot of interest, and we spent a good chunk of time on that. His question was what made us feel connected to this city we all live in.

It turns out that Mr. Shape Note Guy lived for years in a flat a block from my garden plot. One of the other guys also used to live over here. He is the husband of the woman who shot the movie of Shakespeare in the Prison. She died three years ago of cancer, and he is still clearly baffled and battered by the loss.

Mr. Kangaroo plays guitar and is in a little band of singers and guitarists that is playing in a café in my neighborhood tonight. I was exhorted to go. Like a group of artists in college these people all support each other.

I was also exhorted to buy a new book that is just out by Susan Griffin, who is an honorary member of the group and a friend of Walt, called Out of Silence, Sound. Out of Nothing, Something. A Writer’s Guide. He said it was beautifully written.

I got an electronic copy. It is spare, kind, and supportive. I admire her generosity.

So apparently these people meet once a week. And clearly I am in, because Walt sent me a message this morning asking me to come back next week and he was going to see if he could get a couple other women to come.

It was a hoot. And I am proud of myself for going, for managing my social anxiety and with the support of my yoga students, who I consulted with beforehand …for wearing my darn mask the whole time!

Last updated January 20, 2023