Coyote

On the moonlit asphalt there came a coyote. Slender, slim-footed he scampered down the road, paws lightly grazing the ground, appearing almost to float across it as he stalked some prey. Then, he stopped beneath the hazy glow of a yellow stoplight. Ears perked up at the sound of my footsteps across uneven rocks. Slowly, he turned his head, eyes locking onto mine immediately. For a moment beneath the moon we considered each other. Then: a car alarm; a barking dog; a laugh from a party in the apartment across the street. My head turned at the noise, and upon returning to the spot beneath the lamp, found the coyote had already disappeared back into the night.

Hands-on Learning

  “No—it’s one of those things where I put myself in rooms with people smarter than me, listen to what they say, then go into other rooms where the people won’t know any better, and repeat what I’ve heard.”

Orion Descending

Then my dog took a detour, pulling me onto the grassy lawn outside the row of apartment buildings on my block. As he sniffed the base of a palm tree, my eyes drifted heavenward. Between the moonlit silhouetted heads of the palm trees sat the constellation Orion. I stared for want of things to do.

As I watched, the stars one by one fell from the sky and landed in the grass beside me, forming a plasmatic whole upon their earthly reunion. And there he was! The warrior stood before me accompanied by Sirius. For a moment, my dog and he assessed each other. Orion raised his sword in greeting, then they dissipated into the evening fog that had descended upon the neighborhood.

bends

In the distance: Baldwin Hills rise on the horizon, southeast of our parking garage. Fire lanes drape the side of the mountain like a sash, or garland across a tree. From my vantage, I see two lanes, one above, one below; perhaps these are continuations of the same road, forced to curve along the mountain, rounding itself in rhythmic turns to aid the climb of motor vehicles. Just then, I notice along the top road a white vehicle descending, and at the same time, a black vehicle ascending. All at once a symphony of movement along the side of the hill, taken in through my soft-focus gaze.

calculations

Today I counted all the cameras I encountered at work: one on parking garage level 3 (presumably one on every other level: P2, P1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6); one at the elevator from the parking garage to the main walkway; two outside the back door of the building; one at the security desk; one at each elevator bay separated by a series of badge-required gates; one at the vending machine in the kitchenette on the third floor (presumably one on every other level: 1, 2, and 4 and in the other two buildings, also four floors each); one on my laptop; one on the front of my phone; three on the back of my phone; four at the front gate of The Lot; two at the front doors of each building on either side of the courtyard; one in the focus room I accidentally walked into; one in the conference room I had a meeting in; one on each of my coworker’s computers; minimum one on each of my coworker’s cellphones; one rearview camera on my truck; one on every car in the parking lot manufactured after a certain year (total garage capacity: 1500); one front camera on certain models of certain cars manufactured after a certain year (total potential unknown).

As I calculated these amounts, B. approached me at my desk, coming to release his daily allotment of anger. It became a ritual of our relationship to vent—almost always the venting flowed one way: from the furnace of his anger to the icebox of my personality. Sometimes I felt similarly, and fueled the frustration. He complained about the actions of another team that had cross-dependencies with both of ours, going on, at length, about their lack of due diligence, of constantly turning to him and kicking the can.

“I can say this because I’m the kind of person that’s very self-critical. I’m very aware of my own flaws. It’s the only way I can get better. I guess it’s the Virgo in me.”

I understood his frustrations, and expressed my own discontent with the team in question. 

“When I have my yearly review next month, I’m going to go in on myself to D. I can sense all the ways that I’m failing, all the things I’m doing poorly. I can handle criticism from anyone; it’ll never be as hard on me as I am myself,” I said.

We continued at length on this subject; sometimes all it takes is another person who mirrors your personality to reflect back at you your own flaws. It’s one of the easiest ways to identify them.

Fortune teller

A joy of city living is getting a glimpse of what other people own. On nighttime walks with my dog, I love to peek through windows, momentary glances at furniture, artwork, and paint choices. On the weekends, neighbors leave unwanted items on the curb for anyone to rescue. On certain blocks of Beachwood, makeshift flea markets have begun to appear: racks of clothing, boxes of books, weathered lampshades. On a recent walk, I passed a collection of books that overstayed their welcome. Atop the pile sat a golden-trimmed copy of Fortune Telling. I flipped to my birthday, and read the following prediction:

“You are uncommunicative.”

I stopped there; I didn’t need to read anymore. Was it meant to be a fortune, or indicative of my present nature? Was the fortune in attempting to perform the opposite of that—am I better off communicating? I decided not to think too much about it; after all, it was just a random book, neither purchased by nor left for me.

Americana

It appears to me that the core tenet (or, a core tenet) of Americana as an existence is the act of self-creation. To change your life. To aspire to better–for yourself–for everyone. To atone and be forgiven. It’s in this way, then, that  a central goal of the American is to escape the past. The future, always, has to be better. It must be.

riposte

A moving truck idles in the street. Two men exit the cab and wander aimlessly, scanning the houses and apartment buildings for the number they seek. Across the street, a young woman dressed in a robe steps onto her balcony.

“Can you turn off the truck?” she calls to the movers. “It’s very loud.”

“We’ll be five minutes,” they respond.

She repeats the sentence, and they theirs. Back and forth they repeat this dialogue, one side never making any further progress, all while the engine idles. The men remain distracted by the conversation and cannot reach their destination. Out of exhaustion, one climbs up into the cab and kills the engine.

Lovers’ Teachings No. 1

There are flowers that bloom once every twelve years. At our University museum, there was one such plant, expected to bloom, finally, two months in the future. There were advertisements all over campus announcing the event; they expected such a large turnout that they sold tickets for designated blocks of time the days the flower would be full. That was all—twelve years of dormancy, two days to display. After that, the flower begins to wilt.

So he bought us tickets, and we anticipated the flower’s arrival. But that was folly; two months isn’t so long, really, in the grand scheme of twelve years. I never saw it. We didn’t speak the words, but the invitation was rescinded, and by then it was too late to buy a ticket myself. To the flower, it didn’t matter that my eyes did not perceive it. It bloomed, wilted, and receded on its own. It would have done so with or without me.

Bifurcation

A rupture: knife slices cloth, or worse. The seconds that separate conscious moments. Stolid, impassive window above my desk: peace broken by two birds, arced across the sky, visible to me behind a fluorescent glare for only a few seconds.

In Audience

Two girls stood in audience of a man on the outdoor patio of a coffee shop in Los Feliz. He played guitar and sang, while a shallow fence separated him from them on the sidewalk. The guitar was decorated in a pine wreath. The man’s voice was hard and gruff, work-worn and in concert with a grizzled beard and the dirt-streaked skin of the unhoused. I had to excuse myself as passing the girls, so focused on the performance they didn’t realize they blocked the sidewalk.

descension

In the hills of Beachwood Canyon, there are several staircases leading from the city below to the houses above. Descending a set on a rainy day, I found a hidden message written on the steps.

“Not everyone can see

These words are hidden for those with eyes

You are unique”

An auspicious start to the year, I thought, finding them. Then again, any passerby paying attention would notice. But who descends stairs in the rain?