This is my post for day 14 of the Inkhaven writing retreat.

My boyfriend and I live four short blocks away from each other. An eight minute walk. We are in our eighth year. I walk there often, most often at night, around 7:30. For some part of the year, this is during sunset. Sunset is when the neighborhood cats come out. Donut lives closest to me; he’s a black cat, the rockstar of the neighborhood. A couple houses to the right is a crazy grey and white cat. It will chase you and tackle you, harass you and hiss at you. But in a playful way.

I leave my door and turn left, walking half a block toward the sun and the bay. Then I turn left again. At this house, there’s a Little Free Library box. I always stop and look in it. The books are different almost every day. I’ve wondered if the owners cycle the books. I can’t imagine passersby taking them all. I once left a copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh in the box. It was the Penguin edition from 1960. It was outdated; since then, we’ve found many more tablets, which add to our knowledge of the Epic. The book was gone the next day.

Then I go through the park. The park is very long and skinny, and I only cross it for half a block. I cross the first street. This one is reasonably low-traffic, but the visibility isn’t great. I walk down the second block. There are memories here, but they’re all faint. There were bees once. I look into the house that never closes their curtains. I rarely see them in there. I think they’ve moved out, now; the curtains have started being closed sometimes.

I cross the second street. This intersection has barriers that turn it into two separate right-angle turns. Only emergency vehicles should drive straight through. This makes it almost always empty of cars, much nicer to cross. Half the time that I encounter cars here, they’re making a mistake and turn around.

I get to the next street. On the left is the Mexican tile & ceramics store. Every item in this store is heart-achingly beautiful. I’ve bought some from there before. But I mostly don’t have need for tiles.

Crossing this street is the worst. It’s super wide. The pavement reflects the sun and it’s hotter somehow and the whole world suddenly feels like Los Angeles. There’s no stop light. There’s only the lights where you can press a button and make them blink. The blinking is not particularly persuasive.

Crossing this street is the worst, but it’s better than going the other way. The other way, I’d have to cross the worst intersection I know of. That intersection turns drivers psychotic. I’ve had to jump out of the way of the cars more than once. Those same cars are the ones that also cross this intersection, but by this point they’ve regained their sanity. That intersection has a stop light and a pedestrian cross light. Apparently, it is not particularly persuasive either.

Crossing this street is the worst, but it’s the last one.

I cross the street and pass a burger place like an off-brand McDonalds. I’ve never been in. Just the other day I realized that it’s open 24 hours a day. I don’t know anyone who goes there.

At the end of the block I look into the other house whose curtains never close. There is what looks like a stripper pole in there, but I’ve never seen anyone use it. I almost never see anyone in there. I think new people have moved in, now; I see them, and they close the curtains sometimes.

I turn left, and walk toward my boyfriend’s house. There are three ways to get into his apartment. If I go through the front door, there might be people hanging out in the living room. It’s easy to get caught up in conversation with them. But I’m not here for that; I’m here for him. My favorite way is going up the driveway and into the back door. It’s closer to his bedroom. But if I arrive after dark, my passing makes lights turn on. Click, click, click, click. Super bright. Too much attention. I’m trying to remember to go through the gate down the other side. The gate used to be closed all the time. It’s open now, but it still feels weird to walk past the downstairs unit’s door.

He’s always surprised when I show up. He never checks his phone.

Sometimes he comes right back with me to my house for the night. We call it doing a fetch. The other day, we did this just when it started downpouring. We were prepared, me with a raincoat, him with a poncho. We splish-splashed in the puddles and torrents all the way home. It was the best part of my day.