it was supposed to be "my" day. The plan was that i would haul even more mulch down to the B garden area. Haul it using the tarp method. Would then be Ready for when Jenny shows up tomorrow to fence it in. But that didn't seem to be how it needed to go. So, it was me and Emrie. And without detail, there was Long and Sustained Gaze upon her, me. She's been calling me Ma. Now it's G'ma. We shifted. We find ourselves in long sustained observances of ourSelves.
yesterday i'd gone to the grocery store in Oroville, to the Post Office and then for the first time over to Alyssia's place...the new rental. For a couple or few months she'd looked at where to move from Chico and couldn't decide. And then, the FIRE. Suddenly, there was NO WHERE to move to. Everything was taken. And then, this place, a rent with option to buy. she has been working on it for a couple weeks. All the copper had been stolen. No pipes work, meaning no water, no gas. It was built in 1910. There's moss on the roof.
She said.... come up Lincoln, past the feed store. Keep going, through the "bad part", and then there's a space of Nothing and then beyond that, some streets to Mill St. left. she's there. At that corner, on Virginia. I went. It was the first time i'd been in a "house" since i moved here. I'd never gone to her place, a normal condo apartment in Chico, i've never gone to Jenny's apartment in Chico. Just haven't. So.....there i was. in a neighborhood. a California neighborhood. an Ify neighborhood. That she described as one with a lot of Foot Traffic. I didn't know what that meant.
a sustained gaze.
Today i watched Democracy Now. The segments on Sundance. Hale County This Morning This Evening. Documentary. RaMell Ross Director. and they talk about this. The sustained gaze, to LOOK, really really look, for a long time.
Staring.
And i watched twice on Face Book something by Sacramento Bee, a documentary Rebuilding Paradise.
All this. How things need sustained gaze. Long. Long Looking.
