Our Alhambra place, one of a stretch of duplexes, is like a hut, small, old, and cozy. There's plenty of other things to do but I'm choosing to do this. Varying feelings and sensations flow through me. If I don't label them they're merely visitors.
It's Sunday. My husband has the game on. The Saints could move up to second or first place if they win today's game and another team from another game loses. Brianna of Outlander just arrived two hundred years into the past to find her mother. Mirabelle of Shopgirl is entering upon a Tuesday when she will receive her mysterious gloves. Marina contemplates what to do with the rest of her morning. She is not so much contemplating as waiting for whatever it is to become obvious.
Five minutes later and she had read the Tuesday chapter from Shopgirl. The obviousness is still hiding somewhere behind her like a skittish cat. Maybe she should write in her blog. She thinks that she should write what she knows without an agenda. Just her life—simple and uneventful. The best way to start a story is right in the middle.
The Saints are whooping Panthers's booty. Marina read a chapter of What the Wind Knows, a recommendation made by her sister. It's supposed to be about time travel. She can feel it coming but it hasn't happened yet.
Two hours later after some cleaning up, a trip to CVS to get a one-year wedding anniversary card for her husband, scanning some second chance lottery tickets into the new phone app, she finds herself going back to Shopgirl. It's the part when Steve Martin describes the main character's monotonous life. Marina can relate. She is the sub girl to the shop girl. She too watches the clock tick away when she is at her post as temporary teacher. She too finds her job "immaterial" to her artist's lifestyle. She too gets satisfaction from having done her work, her small contribution to society while she whittles away at some book or other or a musical project with her husband.
The Saints won. The other game, however, is more questionable.
A minute later, the wrong team won by a hair. Marina feels her husband's disappointment although he thinks she doesn't care. They are now looking at places to stay for their one year wedding anniversary. Their aim is to go to Sierra Nevada, which will take them on a picturesque drive to find some worthy hot springs.
CREATING MARINA
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