actus contritionis

Five recent transgressions

1. CLUMSINESS: I see flashing lights in the too-early darkness and a gleaming red truck backing into Berkeley Fire Station No. 2₁. Oho! The engine house! I wonder what's inside; I wonder specifically whether there's a fireman's pole;  I wonder so hard I'm almost running to catch a glimpse before the rolling door comes down. Ten feet! Six! The gap is closing. I trip over my own heel or curiosity and eat it₂. I'm up in an instant but all I see before the door shuts are blunt-toed boots; I hear the "Oooooh" of large and mildly amused men.

2. ANTHROPOMORPHISM: When my train passed the port in the morning the cranes were staring down a wall of cloud with the steel of rain showing through in its billows and folds. The advancing front had broached the ridgeline across the bay; it was coming for us like age and winter. In the narrow band of crystal blue above the front was possibility the sentinels might somehow hold it back.

3. IMPERTINENCE:
SFPD: GET. OFF. THE. STATUE.
Me: But why?
SFPD: HOW 'BOUT I CUFF YOU IN THE BACK OF MY CAR AND TELL YOU WHY?

4. MISPLACED SYMPATHY: The man I am sorriest for is Bill Gates, who surely knows there will be no such vigils on his passing. Not for you these teary hipsters, Bill, for you could not have Changed The World in that jacket. I find this brutally unfair, rage for him a little, but imagine he himself is merely sad, perhaps resigned, imagine this, of course, based on nothing at all.

5. IMPATIENCE: In my life I have never been a natural at anything, which is why it is absurd to be irritated, three lessons in, that I am not Michael Phelps. Incurably, knee-jerk₃ competitive, I repeatedly catch myself trying to outpace whatever unknowing, blurred body has entered the lane next to me, usually a ballooning geriatric in a dots-and-dasies one-piece and usually without success. I kick like a furious kid in a car-seat and cannot coordinate how or when to breathe. I pull up heaving and sputtering. "Nice j— well, ok," says Waterproof Eyeliner McSquareshoulders, the instructor. "Why don't you keep trying."
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1. Meanwhile in San Francisco, a master craftsman mends a ladder that may outlive him, works Douglas fir that's been breathing in the city for 15 years. Watch this one; I am dazzled.
2. A lot of that, lately! Though, whenever I trip in front of an audience I think of Maya, another Frequent Faller. She is tall and porcelain beautiful, which somehow makes me feel better.
3. My knee is no longer just a jerk; it's evil. Hence the swimming.