Laurustina

wow. wierd. I haven’t been here in a while. Back in November, when I was writing every day, I got into this mindset of writing first thing in the morning, but way back in the day, when I wrote all the time, I did much of it at night. Now I don’t, and I don’t really know why. Maybe its because my hands hurt by the end of the day, or I got so used to my hands hurting by the end of the day that I just stopped even considering writing at night. And now that Mouse and I share this computer, we trade off a lot at night, so I haven’t fallen into an evening writing groove. But blah blah blah … all of that is really just a long-winded way to say that it feels weird to be here now, and it reminds me of the Capitola years, when Mr. J. and I spent our evenings on opposite sides of that big bedroom upstairs in that tiny condo, when my desk was set up on the built-in vanity which meant that all evening I sat at the computer facing a giant mirror, in which I could see the television, the back of my husband’s head, the children when they wandered into the room, and the dogs (Iggy and Fat Lola) sprawled on the bed. There are things I miss rather desperately about Capitola, but the condo is not one of them.

Mouse called from Capitola tonight. He’s visiting for the week, playing the piano in the coffee house late at night and dancing along the cement seawall on his way back to Mary Mary’s place. I look forward to him coming home on Friday. The house is too quiet when he is not here.

I finished The Letter this week. Finally. Its the one I have been mentally working on for more than a year, the one I wanted to send to the Board of Directors at The Pride Center downtown. Actually, it it a completely different letter than the one I first intended to write. But it is, I think, the right letter; the one I needed to send, anyway.Maybe that’s why it took me a year to write it, because I had to get enough distance to realize that what I needed to say and what was actually important for them to hear were not the same things.

I am sending three books for their library along with the letter. My sister made little stickers for me to put inside each one, which read: Donated to the Pride Center library in memory of Ashlie V.; beloved daughter and fierce friend. There is a part of me that wanted to keep the books as soon as they arrived. (I’ve read them all, but own none of them) but I also hope that some day, someone like me will wander through their door in search of information that they didn’t have when I wandered through their door, and someone will go to the shelf and pull down one of those books and give it to her. It is a small gesture and at this moment, even the small gestures feel like  milestones.