The Date Passed

September sixth. The print sale at the framing shop was last weekend. I know this because Simone told me about it in August, and I put it in my calendar with the particular optimism I reserve for things I am not sure I will do. And then the day came, and I did not go. I made coffee. I read for a while. I wrote half a post about the cord and didn't finish it. The day had the texture of a day that is not waiting for anything, and I stayed inside it.

I've been trying to figure out what to say about that, and what I keep arriving at is: the not-going told me something. Not dramatically. Just the way the morning felt when the option closed, a little lighter, actually, like a question that had been sitting just below conscious thought had finally been answered by someone not bothering to answer it. I don't think I needed to see the prints. I think I needed to know whether I would go. And I got the answer, just not the one I'd assumed I was moving toward.

Simone asked me about it at Tuesday's session. I said I hadn't gone. She nodded in the way she nods when she is filing something away without commenting on it, which is its own form of commentary. The cord is still on the windowsill, still not placed, still not a drawer object. I looked at it this morning and thought: it is doing what I did on Saturday. Just being present without insisting on a purpose. Maybe that is enough for now. Maybe the date passing is how some things begin.

The cord. The windowsill. The gap. The date that passed.

The notebook knew before I did.