+ I Wish I Could Give You This Feeling

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Tonight, in the car on the way to Stacie's I said to D & B, "what is so amazing, is that we can just be. Small stories from the past, but our now is so rooted in the now in a way I've never experienced it before." Dusty Rose says, "I was gonna say, ask me a question! But then I started to agree with the 'now' bit." Baraka sings, "The present is a gift and I just wanna be..."

In order to avoid the trek to Daly City for a clothes change, Dusty Rose washes the two outfits I stuffed in my knapsack and loans me socks. I get to drive her car again (purrrr) over the San Fran highways to 16th and Mission. Let me tell you. Ok, how can I tell you? How about starting with this: Cameron, the top-hatted artist who creates their fliers said to me, "This is gonna be something they write about in history, maaaan, and we're gonna say, 'I was there!'"

True this. 16th and Mission, which I've described earlier, is a corner in The Mission District, right outside the BART station, where poets and homeless people and drunks and musicians alike gather to read/sing/spit circus-ring style on the street. Tonight we storm in with wings on our heels. I buy two bottles of water and fall straight into Charmin' Charlie's arms as he pulls me through the crowd, "this is the cover of our next book and you are submitting!" He then practically pushes me in the ring, though someone else swoops in to play an upright bass and a lady sings along, oldsouljazz style, and instead Charlie grabs my arm and we fake-swing dance to the music. He releases me into the center and I'm competing with the chatter but bolster up every bit of airspace left in my cough-heavy lungs and as John Survivor used to say, SPIT THAT SHIT POET!

"Poem for Mahogany," for Aaron. Harder than ever, due to the traffic and general conversation on the outskirts, and Bekah was right, it was pure and the audience of random artists and hooligans really gave their faces over for the show. A few young women approached me afterward and I was breathing hard and beamed big smiles of thanks back at them 1,000,000 times over. Dusty Rose grabs my backpack and I follow her through the crowd where we post up on the concrete, Pants joining us, leaning into my lap and we hug like old friends, kisses on the cheeks from all sides.

And yes, because it's a random happening, random things occur. The healer dude from Union Square is there, the one who I ran into at Power to the Peaceful (go read that blog), which makes me laugh big and remember seeing him on TV with Tina Gaudy busting a gut laughing. Characters yell in time with people's poems. A comedian takes center stage and everyone is rolling on the floor half in "what the...?", half in genuine humor. Following this, a woman gets up with a rant. She takes a long time to get it out, but clearly needs to be heard and has this funny sort of chortling laugh between each fragment of thought. We listen, sneaking glances of humor and "hmmm's?" At some point a guitar beings to play in time with her, then somehow miraculously we are all dancing, and it's joyous for a moment, everyone in the center stomping their feet and laughing and clapping until one drunken arm hits the woman, accidentally I think, it was unclear and happened so fast and all of a sudden a fight has broken out. "Don't touch me!" She yells and everyone backs off and isn't sure what to do when Pants steps in with a poem about love. The crowd quiets and the woman saunters off. I step back to watch the whole scene. One of the men who started 16th and Mission gets up, embarrassed at the crowd for disrespecting this woman. Baraka counters with, "I mean, there is also an energy and things happen here spontaneously, it's the corner, you know, but I hear you, man." Joe is aiming the lecture at hecklers. I am not sure who heckled who, but he leaves, respectfully and the vibe is significantly changed. Unsure about my place in the bigger picture, I look at Charlie, who shrugs, "yeah, things happen here, you know?"

The remaining group huddles close around a reader, their arms around each other while I hang back to talk to Cameron. The clock strikes twelve and I hug my friends, gathering compliments from a young man who tells me I'm glorious, all of which I drink in with pride and love and board the BART home to an empty house that feels like a nest. Talking to Chris on the way home who kept his eyes open just to see me safely to the door and a conversation with Tina filled with life lessons and exclamation points and I'm sitting in the middle of this, yes, glorious existence, and can't say it enough: thankful.

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