a moment in the day: thread

It's garbage day and I've dumped the recycling from the can to the bin, dumped the compost from the little kitchen container to the other bin, and as I set the empty compost container in the sink to soak, I go over to our calendar, tacked to the wall, to see if this week is a garbage week or a non-garbage week. The city takes the compost, the recycling, the glass every week, but the garbage only every other. I have garbage day notated on the calendar on every other Monday with a little g.

This Monday has no g. Not a garbage day. But my eyes tick to Tuesday, where Stephen's handwriting says:

Nicholas Day

The words hit like a warm, soft thud in my chest. A whole year tomorrow since we said goodbye.

I think about this as I drag the garden-clipping-and-compost bin down along the side of the house to the curb. My little boy. I should pay some sort of tribute. Share some pictures. What would I say?

What comes to mind is that I feel Nicholas in all the little beings I see, somehow. The squirrels that run across the fence with their question mark tails, the birds that hop in the trees.

I walk back from the curb and along the side of the house.

What comes to mind is, sometimes I worry that I let go too soon. Sometimes I worry that I held on too long.

As I grab hold of the handle of the big blue plastic recycling bin, I see the asterisked translucent threads of a spiderweb running from the bin to the fence. The spider sitting dead center trembles with the movement as my hand tips the bin up just so slightly and then stops.

I stand there holding the bin at that little angle for a moment.

Then set it back down. I'll take out the recycling next week.

a moment in the life of my book: first

My first reading is done. That's what I think as I walk, with my publisher Laura Stanfill, up the steps of movie theater four, where we just finished our presentation, and turn to go into movie theater three, where the novels and memoirs and poetry collections of the authors of the Sisters Festival of Books lie stacked up across a row of tables. My first reading, in public, from my actual book, not my manuscript-in-progress, but my actual, physical book (three weeks ahead of the official publication date but festivals get special privileges), is done.

Laura and I step past the tables of books and down the aisle, past the raked movie theater seats, to the little stage in front of the movie screen, to sidle behind another row of tables, and take a seat next to other festival authors who are waiting to sign books. And before I know it, someone is standing in front of us holding a copy of both Laura's book, Imagine a Door, and mine. Holding mine out to me to sign. 

It occurs to me that I haven't thought about what I'd write to people if they asked me to sign their book. My book. My book that is now their book. Back in the day when I signed copies of City of Weird, I sometimes drew a little cartoon of an octopus like the octopus on the cover. What cartoon could I draw now for Who Killed One the Gun? 

A... gun? 

I take my book from the woman's hand. I ask her name. When I put pen to paper, I write, Thank you for being at my very first reading.

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By the way, if you're in Portland, join me for my book launch of Who Killed One the Gun? at Powell's City of Books, October 7, at 7 PM. I’ll be in conversation with Margaret Malone (People Like You) and my reading will be accompanied by the crackerjack old-time-radio-style sound effects of foley artist David Ian. More information is here. My novel can be preordered now.