I Said I Could Handle It

Wednesday. The community center had a donation drop-off, three boxes of textbooks, apparently very thorough textbooks, left just inside the front doors with a note asking if someone could move them to the back supply room. I was the someone. I said I could handle it. I said this before I picked up the first box.

Three trips. My back has been registered an ongoing complaint since approximately the second trip, which I ignored, which is how I ended up doing a full ceiling-stare stretch in the hallway after the third.

the final box. finally.

The fluorescent lighting in that corridor is not flattering to a person in recovery. I have been coming to this building long enough, Wednesday yoga, open studio, the printmaking nights, the occasional errand, that I know where the supply room is and roughly where to put things. This felt like useful information at the time. The boxes were heavier than the word 'textbooks' suggested. That is all I have to say about that.

back said: reconsider next time.

The prints are still leaning against the kitchen wall at home. Twenty-three days now, which I know because I've apparently started counting. The community center corridor smelled like industrial cleaner and the specific dust of donated things, and somehow by the time I was driving home my back felt fine and I was thinking about where I'd put a nail if I ever picked one up. I didn't pick one up. But I thought about it, which is further than I was last week.