A. staring at a diamond-shaped pattern that is becoming a leafy red lace thing in her hands, while simultaneously showing P. how to pearl stitch, talking about peer counseling as it functions in domestic violence trainings and filling me in on our Sister Spit outing for this Friday.
P. learning to stitch in reverse while simultaneously making dahl, asking me about the avant garde (with a healthy dose of micro-lending, volunteer food banking skepticism) and outfitting me with an owl shirt from the Salvation Army.
Y being quiet, staring at his laptop and reading the news from Japan, telling us how he's feeling about doing research on Japanese single mothers whose daughters commit suicide for being bullied about the divorce, receiving their stories when he has come to live here--they are providing him with the stories he needs to complete his thesis for his nonprofit business degree, but what is he doing for them in exchange? Beginning to give the attention that is needed, learning new methods from the SF Food Bank, I tell him.
To have someone witness you in your work and say it is enough, for the moment, even when the need is endless. Michelle helps me with this. An office manager at ILRCSF and a poet friend, in the same space. This coincidence an incredible luxury.
I am reading A Megaphone, while simultaneously using some part of my brain to work out the problem of how I'll write this next Proyecto Vision article--how really, maybe I am not comfortable writing a disability article that doesn't have some triumphalist slant (and my discomfort discomforts me), and quoting passages from Christina Peet to the knitters.
And to Y. who has taken a break from scrolling through the devastation to his home country. Is lying on his belly on the floor, staring into the fish tank, at the shy and "dorky" mini-puffers.
