I Signed Up and Then I Showed Up

March tenth. Last Saturday was the final session. I keep starting sentences about it and stopping, not because I don't have anything to say but because everything I have to say sounds slightly too large for what actually happened, which was: I went to six Saturday workshops, I learned things, I got a printed card at the end confirming I had done this, and Simone drove me home.

I wrote about the flyer in January. I wrote about looking up the registration page. I wrote 'I signed up' at the end of a post about February light, which is the most oblique way I have ever announced anything. What I didn't write, because I wasn't sure I believed it yet, is that I was afraid I would get there and understand within twenty minutes that I had made a mistake, that the wanting of the thing was not the same as being suited for the thing. Six Saturdays later I can report that I did not make a mistake, though I also did not turn out to be secretly brilliant at it. I learned how to think about light. I learned that I have been taking photographs with my phone for years without once asking myself why I framed them the way I did. That was, it turns out, the useful part.

the hallway. simone doing the one quiet 'told you so' she allowed herself.

Simone said 'told you' exactly once on the drive home and then moved on immediately to a conversation about something completely unrelated, which is maybe the kindest thing a person can do after you've spent two months being nervous about a decision you already made. We got coffee. We talked too long in the parking lot of the coffee place the way we always do. It was a regular Saturday by the end of it.

walking to the car. still talking. the way we always are.

The phone photo of the flyer is still in my camera roll. I haven't deleted it. I don't think I'm going to.