August 9, 2015

Went to write at the High Five Saturday morning. There was some sort of lesbian gathering there, and it has been a long time since I have encountered such a power and variety of body odor. Maybe they had been on a camping trip, though their garments didn’t look like they had. Every woman I came close to stank. Maybe it’s some sort of political statement that you have to be in the inner circle to understand. I made for the outside quick as I could, where I did, in fact write. I watched a family, and wrote about them. The great flux, the great Giving continues.
   
This morning I went downtown at dawn and wandered Pack Square. The homeless occupied all the benches in front of the restaurants there, and I was glad the police weren’t summarily rooting them out. I planted myself at the prow of Pack Square, where I could watch everything. The shadow of the Vance Monument–with the rising sun directly behind it-- lay as far down Patton Avenue as I could see. Maybe it was built that way, to point due west down Patton at sunrise on the 9th of August. A homeless guy came over and we chatted. He lives in Sioux Falls, SD, where there are excellent shelters, one you can go to when you’re drunk. He was visiting his sister in Dana, but she’s schizo and off her meds, so they had a terrible fight and he took the bus to Asheville, where last night he slept on concrete in one of the parking decks. All the shelters are full. I did not share that inspiration came across me as we talked. Maybe it was his doing. I gave him $20. The trees by the fountain are slippery elm. The fountain pulses, sometimes on, sometimes off, like a great animal breathing.