Relaxing under the honeysuckle vine at a favorite cafe in Hatch. This is an old haunt for weekend breakfast with great food & a wonderful patio.

I bought some Mexican trinkets, 3 shot glasses for my now-not-colorless tiny shelf, a replacement light switch cover for the one that cracked off the wall after two weeks in my energy field, a napkin holder which I’ll use for outgoing mail.

The coffee is terrible but this goes unnoticed after the first sips when it becomes an inward sun complementing the outward one all around.

I postpone ordering breakfast, feeling very Euro…sitting with a journal. The only rush seems to be among the touch-down flies sampling my arm hairs before zipping off. It’s maybe 10:00 with deep shadows outlined in brilliant sunshine. One tiny blossom has come loose from the garden & I claim it for my table.

I sat here years ago in the same light, drinking awful coffee, writing. The grandchildren then wait tables now, the newest littles asking boldly, “What’s your name?” (His is Buddy.)

I use the floppy menu as a backer for the floppy journal My leg sweats against its plastic. A train horn slices the morning light & echoes it back as sound, somewhere chile is on the move from the Chile Capital of the World. Red or green or Christmas? (You’ll understand that question when you come here.)

I review the last week & decide I have had enough of fear. Fear of job rejection, fear of not enough, fear itself. I made an egregious error last Saturday & my conscience rides me like a crown of thorns. Basta!

I decide to be my feral self, my unsocialized. self-aggrandizing self, to make my own way again in the world which knows no shame at trying to shame me. I open an imaginary chest & pack the quivering mass in there, catching drippy spills to include it all. I mentally bring it to the nearest church, the closest municipal building & dump it unceremoniously at the curb in front.

Finally hungry, I order a chorizo burrito smothered green.

When it arrives, I will eat it with my coffee-stir teaspoon, missing not a flake of pepper or a drop of the sauce. And so I do! My tongue burns on both sides. I swallow a cough which is also tasty.

Laughter comes from inside the cafe. The flickers fly above while the sparrows arrive, sidling unde the fence for crumbs. None here, guys, not on my plate!