All too Difficult to

Looking out east to the Bay before the sun hints at the horizon.  Thirty-two floors down below at another hotel the noise has already begun.  Someone has a small gong, and there are drums.  The protesters at the W Hotel have commenced disruption early.  I am in a hotel by the same chain but for some reason no one is protesting outside my hotel, which suits me. 

I think of every person who has ever had to clean a hotel room or keep the elevators running safely or welcome people with a smile regardless, out there now, at 6:00AM, in the street, frustrated by a profitable company, newly merged, that negotiates cold positions.  I consider the hard-earned right to protest and inequities vs. efficiencies and acknowledge that they have disrupted my morning as was their intent. 

The sun is up now and it cuts into the room.  One look and I can tell it will be this way, sharp light for hours now.  The light and the sound all make it all too difficult to concentrate.  I pull the blind and search for some music to drown out the chant of “Who’s got the power?  We’ve got the power.”   Don Byas, then.  I don’t know this album.  I haven't heard him in years. 

At eight o’clock I have a call with someone I haven’t met before.  We quickly establish that we both grew up in the New York area and everything really does become easier, I think, for both of us as a result.  Then down to meet a friend at the base of Russian Hill.  I didn’t think to listen for the parrot flock.  I used to work here in this neighborhood in 2001, which felt like a very present, now-now time all those years ago.  Soon we’re outside at a posh place I associate with this friend, eating a particularly moist blue cheese burger having been talked into a lunch with a gin martini.  He is someone I can speak candidly and soon we are considering something new that draws me in till soon, I'm saying: "yes, yes."

Thursday, 11/01/18