This is a Pocket Note. Pockets Notes are where I practice paying attention.
Today, I am finishing the upcoming Pocket Observation. I hoped to have the curriculum out yesterday, but then I found one last academic article with one last scrap of research. And that scrap of research made the curriculum whole. So I had to rework everything.
This next observation is about garbage cans and power. In one section, we dive into the categories we use in deciding what should be discarded and what should be kept. I guess it should be obvious that I am not good at sorting anything into the discard pile. How can I let go of anything? When there is so much of everything but time and me?
Anyways, the scrap of research that I couldn’t discard is being woven in right now. The curriculum will be out next week.
Another little thing.
I work in our basement; in a storage room I turned into an office. I like being underground, alone in this little room. On Fridays, Riley works upstairs; in our bedroom I keep meaning to decorate. Or at least dust. Riley likes being anywhere, with someone.
Usually when Riley works from home, he peeks in. “Want to take a quick walk, Meggi?” I pull my eyes from a book or screen and say, yes. Because I do. But I never ask him to go on a quick walk, because I never think to ask anyone to walk with me.
Riley knows I can’t go on a walk today because I’m dealing with that last scrap of research. So, I haven’t really seen him. But I can hear his footsteps. Coming down the stairs to find something for lunch. Pacing and pausing in the kitchen. A sprint upstairs before the next meeting starts.
It reminds me a little of when I was kid. My parents went out on a date every Friday night. After the sitter put me to bed, I’d stay up listening. I couldn’t sleep until I heard my parents’ footsteps down the hall.
And it’s funny, isn’t it? That we can need the sound of someone else’s footsteps? And it’s funny, isn’t it? That someone like me, someone who likes being alone in little rooms underground, someone who never thinks to ask anyone to walk with her, someone who doesn’t even know how to form that question, spends so much time listening for footsteps?
And maybe I became a writer because I couldn’t ask you to walk with me. Maybe I hoped I could transmit my words to wherever you're walking, maybe I hoped they'd send an echo of your footsteps back to me. Maybe that's what I've been in here listening for all these years. Maybe.
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