Today Emily and I continued our Self-Guided Parks tour of Seattle at Golden Gardens, sitting on a beached log with crashing waves on one side and train tracks on another. I flipped over a crab who was resting, perhaps dead, belly up on the shore,  and jumped over a stream of saltwater, and we did some cards. Before that there had been a long time sitting and watching pregnant women and men with long hair and giant dogs in the Ballard Farmer's Market. I had eaten a tamale and thought about Liz and all the times I had gone to her exhausted in the West Side twilight and she had fed me tamales. Emily gave me a painting, royal blue, of scapulae. It was so amazing to have her here, however briefly. We ate and walked, sat and talked, the best kind of visit.

Having her here made me feel even more presently how distracted I am right now, how fragmented, how dissembled from concepts and former realities of myself as a whole and giving friend and listener. It's just a point of time, a sea of conditions, but I hope that it dissipates and doesn't stick to my ribcage, my memory of self, my patterns and habits.

I feel the beginning of an internal knowledge of this place. Today, the weather. Small rain in the morning, then a clear bright heat. Then rain and mist hanging in the hair, then clear dusk. Pouring at night. All the sorts of weather in one day, but most of all, an open sky. I think that's the key to Seattle weather.

I have been seeing a lot of raccoons. I have walks that my feet know and bus rides that I can take in the dark and with music filling my ears and pull the cord instinctively, at the right moment.