The Brochure I Didn't Throw Away

January third. I found it in my coat pocket when I was hanging the coat up, one of those tri-fold community center brochures, the kind with the slightly waxy paper and the clip-art borders that they haven't updated since 2006. I don't know when I picked it up. Probably off the rack near the front desk at some point in December, the way you pick things up without deciding to. I unfolded it in the kitchen and stood there reading it.

I read it the way you read a menu at a restaurant you're not sure you're going to order from. Looking for something, but not wanting to commit to knowing what. There were classes listed, ceramics, which I've done; a drawing workshop, which I have the sketchbook for; a few things I didn't recognize and couldn't quite picture myself in. And one thing I circled in my head but not on the paper. I didn't actually mark the paper. I just stood there with it open on the counter for longer than made any practical sense.

The brochure, flattened out. Still just looking.

The thing I've been noticing, and I'm only saying it here because this is where I notice things out loud, is that I don't have a forward-facing want right now. Or I do, but it's the shape of one, not the content. Like I can feel the outline of a door without knowing what's behind it. The brochure didn't answer anything. But I folded it back up and put it on the counter instead of the recycling, which is more than I usually do. Gerald's vine has gotten long enough to cast a little shadow now, and the collapsed bowl caught the light for a second while I stood there, and I thought: this apartment has gotten very full of things I kept without knowing why, and that's probably fine.

January light and an open question.

I'll look at the brochure again tomorrow. Or I won't. Either way, January has started doing what January does, which is making the interior of a room feel like a reasonable place to spend a lot of time.