Rainy Saturday Afternoon

I spent this afternoon the way I spend a part of each day five days of the week: waiting for my kids to get out of activities. And while I wait, I go to the public library with my notebook and work on poems. People ask me why I don't go to a coffee shop instead, and the reason is the music. I have a hard time listening passively to music, and don't concentrate well when it's playing. So it's the library for me, where the sounds never get louder than the sliding of a chair across the floor, or the flipping-through-a-newspaper noise.

Our local library has some extra color. On cold, rainy, windy, or snowy days it becomes a haven for homeless people. That means I can always get a seat at one of the two-person desks that line the walls of the library, because it seems that a lot of people don't want to sit next to a homeless person. And I know why: the odor. But I can put up with it to have an actual desk to work at. The library welcomes the down-and-out as long as they don't sleep; then they are politely asked to leave. When I am parked at a desk with a homeless person who nods off, I get up and down, scrape my chair on the ground, and jostle the table in an attempt to wake them up and keep them safe and warm a little longer. It doesn't always work, and I don't reach over and shake them awake; I don't know why.

Another feature that the library has over Starbucks is the plethora of feral cats that play outside the floor-to-length windows. That's always good for a few-minutes' break when writing.

This week I'm working on a poem about benign positional vertigo, which I have. I don't know if it's because I'm thinking about it, or because I had a stomach bug earlier this week and am still not feeling my best (plus nausea in my mind is linked with vertigo), but I've had more than my usual episodes of vertigo this week. This happens when I'm under stress or not feeling well, but I do wonder if thinking about metaphors for vertigo has brought on a few attacks. Incentive to get this poem finished up. And I can always use some incentive.