A thousand times

This is a photo of the fountain in the little courtyard by The church on the corner, by Solano and Ramona avenues, next to China Village.

There was once a place called Etc.,. and it was a haircutting place. One of the windows from the salon looked out over this courtyard. We came to Albany on Saturdays to get our haircuts from someone named Clare, who knew my Dad back in Georgia. She was a large part of my childhood until she moved back to Georgia when I was in sixth grade. She died of cancer. She went to school with a maid who worked at the motel. I think of Clare almost every day---whether I am conscious of it or not. She was part of my life in Berkeley. She lived by Jefferson elementary with her daughter and we would go to her house. It was off Sacramento---it was one of those old Berkeley houses with a crystal type doorknob--and inside the house, each door had a keyhole.

I missed the two day window where there was a meteor shower last week. The showers started the same day my Godmother died. If I recall correctly. I looked up in the sky the first night and saw nothing. Then I think it was overcast maybe the second night? I figured I would see some stray meteors later in the week. Saw one Thursday night walking with back from El Cerrito plaza. Also saw something I have seen once before, but had no name for. It looked like a slowly moving star... making its way across the sky, until the eye couldn't follow it. What was it? Was it a satellite? Have no idea.

When I think about the night time sky, I think about a thought I had once, right before I woke up from a nightmare. We are all from the same star. We are all connected in some intricate way, like all the matter in the Universe. When I think about it, it is fascinating. Just like the idea that before us, there were other species of human and non-human. What did they think and feel? Did they dream of us? I'm sure they dreamt of who and what they encountered in their lives.

There is a saying that you only live once. I believe you live at least a thousand times. Once for you. And in the space of a life, one meets at least a thousand people. And each person thinks of one thing or one person around a thousand times, I figure. Because no matter where you are in your life cycle, whoever has come in contact with you thinks about you at any given time or place. Something you wrote, something you said, something you did or didn't do. Or maybe the fact that they heard your voice or saw you passing by. Or maybe they looked at a picture of you. And each time, you live a life. Over and over. In some ways, memory is like an illusion. It continues to show you things after the fact. As if they are still happening. Like in dreams. And that is how we each live at least a thousand times. If we meet at least a thousand people in the space of a life, and they think of us at least a thousand times, our breath continues in the space of their thought.