(photo caption: Beethoven at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, readying for his birthday)

Friday night I read with Beth Coyote, Kelly Boyker, Martha Vallely, Pat Hurshell, and Marta Sanchez at Phinney Ridge Community Center as part of the Intersections series. As I listened to each poet read, it was like adding an entirely different variety of flower to my bouquet, each vivid and particular to itself. A great evening! Thank you to Rebecca Loudon, master weeder, pruner, soil enhancer and deep listener! The musician, Helen Parsons, grew on me. Her lyrics were hilariously weird, her guitar plucking accompaniment spare and sometimes silly, her self presentation elfin. My son in law saw her get a glass of wine before the reading and thought he should grab it away from her, since she looked about 11. Now he wants her CD.

As for myself, not the reading or the poetry, which are fine, really, I have at this point to admit that somehow I am wired backwards because I always always always have the experience after a reading of becoming distracted, frantic, nervous, nervous, nervous and having to leave. Friday night I was convinced I had lost my cellphone, had a vivid image of myself picking it up and turning it off while talking with Rebecca and Martha before the reading. I went through my big bag three times, Jim went through it, taking out item by item, which was a bit embarrassing. Luckily I hadn't changed my underpants, just pants, shoes, socks and shirt, all of which were sitting on a folding chair for awhile there. No cellphone. I talked to a couple of the other readers, not to Rebecca, not to Mimi. I kept getting more wired and strange as though a cellphone disappearing was more important than anything in the fracking universe. By the time we got out to the car and found the cellphone sitting in the cupholder, I just needed to go home and lie down. When I got home my frantic upset self couldn't lie down. Eventually it was the next day and I felt embarrassed and regretful for missing out on celebrating everyone's success. Luckily I did tell Martha how wonderfully she read.