Last Saturday, the Cabbage had piano lessons at 11:30. Her teacher holds lessons on the second floor of one the old warehouses in the historic West Bottoms. Sometimes I tag along, sometimes I’m busy doing other things. Usually, Michael and I wander around some of the antique shops in the area while the Cabbage is having their lesson. Then we’ll go have lunch somewhere after lessons. On this particular Saturday, I took my camera with me thinking I’d be inspired by the old, rundown buildings in the West Bottoms.

I’ve done this before, taken my camera along when visiting this area of the city. What has happened more often than not is that I don’t ever really take any pictures. I get distracted poking around a shop or Michael suggests getting hot beverages and then I’m holding a coffee and trying to wield my camera at the same time. It seemed like that same sort of thing was going to happen last Saturday too. I took a few snaps, drank a macchiato and then wandered around a shop that mostly sells houseplants. But something changed after lunch. We ended up at an old deli in downtown where the Cabbage ordered a slice of cheese pizza with extra cheese and a side of cottage cheese and Michael and I had a discussion about how badly we did or did not need to go to Costco. It was decided that need was not great and our time would be better spent wandering around the downtown public library.

The Kansas City Downtown Public Library is often on a must-see list. The parking garage is painted on one side to look like a giant bookshelf of books. The library itself is housed in an old bank, the vault is visible on basement level where the film and music section is housed. That floor also contains a display of Orval Hixon’s photos, including the one I shared here earlier this week. Every floor holds a treasure other than books and every floor has a window (or three or twenty) that provides an interesting view of the downtown skyline. And I had my camera out for all of it. I took my time, often letting Michael and the Cabbage get way ahead of me, often just wandering off from the group that was us. It was the most time I had spent consciously taking photos with my Nikon since maybe our trip to New Orleans back in March.

It made me breathe out in a sigh of relief.

This has been a very good week. Three days this week, I have ridden my bicycle to work. Michael installed a new and improved basket onto Valerie. My old Ikea one broke in a most annoyingly spectacular way last week. There has been time for my yoga practice and I made an edible loaf of sourdough bread over the weekend that was good enough to soak in the Sunday’s pot of beans and greens. I got us tickets to an event hosted by The Friends of Library this evening where we will picnic in Union Hill Cemetery and listen to ghost stories from some voice actor. When we still were not eating in restaurants because of the pandemic, Michael and I grabbed food to go from an area restaurant and had a picnic in this cemetery and it was one of my favorite things we did during the pandemic or ever. So I’m ending the week doing one my most favorite things.

This is week has been a reprieve from the chaos of my October Calendar, a moment of peace before I start running around like chicken for the next three weeks. I’m grateful for this calm before the storm.