Night One, Which Is Its Own Thing

The class was at seven. I'd registered about ten days ago, one of those decisions where the tab closed before I'd consciously made it, the same way the outdoor skills workshop tab closed, the same way most things in this category seem to happen for me. I walked in a few minutes early and found a seat near the window and immediately did the thing where you study your notebook like it contains the answer to a question no one has asked yet.

The first session of anything has its own particular texture. You don't know the rhythms of the room yet, when people laugh, when they ask questions, when they just write things down and wait. I took notes I'm not sure I'll fully understand tomorrow. That's not a complaint. There's something clarifying about being a beginner again, the way yoga was in those early Wednesday sessions, the way the outdoor skills workshop was that cold February morning, you're paying attention in a way that the settled things don't require of you anymore.

Packing up. Still not sure what I wrote down.

I stayed a few minutes after the room cleared. Not because I had somewhere specific to arrive at, but because the session felt like it deserved a moment of being held before I walked back out into the block. The window had gone properly dark by then. October does that fast. I looked at my notebook, which had three pages of handwriting and one sentence I'd underlined twice without knowing why.

The room after. The specific quiet of it.

Second session is next week. I have no expertise here and the expertise isn't the point. The being-there is the point, and the being-there was easy, which is, I think, the only thing night one ever actually has to accomplish.