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afloat
July 16, 2006
last thursday night...
sometimes, i wish austin was being kept weird at a more manageable distance.
a few minutes ago, i sat down at the bar at kerbey lane, needing dinner, and armed with a bag full of laptop, notebook, newly returned iPod, and the book i've been reading, the time-traveler's wife
i feel like some simplicity tonight, and after a little internal debate, i end up ordering the "american classic": a couple of eggs, toast, and homefries. for the first time maybe ever, i order my eggs scrambled instead of sunny-side up. i don't really know why - it just seems right.
i try reading for a bit, but with the newly-regained stability of a steady income, my mind has turned back to all the writing i should be doing, that i have to do. as i pull out the laptop, another diner plops down to my right, a slightly disheveled-looking woman, naturally fair-skinned but cooked over decades to a deep brown, topped by an incomprehensible convulsion of dirty blonde hair.
almost immediately, she begins singing along with the piped-in music.
after several minutes of booting-up and opening a separate word processing window, i have blank white lcd waiting patiently before me. i begin to type, and i hear, over my headphones, singing. the kyboard bounces back up from the bar lightly. she's drumming. and singing.
she starts looking around, having apparently chosen something from the menu, and i begin to be a little conscious of how visible anything i might type would be, whether she were being nosy or not. i close the notebook, and pull out the old small spiral, and the montblanc pen that was my father's first gift to me when we reconnected almost eight years ago.
this week, i've felt like i'm getting my balance back. oddly, though, i don't know when or where some sense of balance last truly existed for me. am i finding it as i emerge from the confusion and darkness of the last few weeks? or am i regaining it after the disarray of the last few months? or after these last many years?
i do know that i'm better than i've been, but i also know i've been better than this. and, of course, i know that nothing has been set right - i still feel the sense of a better, more fitting destiny slipping away. i still feel love is harder and harder to foresee in my future.
but this is good. i'm just getting my feet solid, a bit more squarely under me. i feel like i'm regaining lost ground physially, and getting my mind back a little.
my meal comes, and for a moment, i juggle plate of food, iPod, and book. in the pause, i realize that my neighbor is now talking worriedly to herself. for her sake and mine, i prefered the singing and drumming.
so, more and more, i'm getting back to O.K. with the present, trying to be able to appreciate the moment, to be at rest, at peace. it feels as much a process as learning to run, or more aptly, like learning to ride a bike again after years of letting yours collect dust.
the future, though... that's different. what is the future? i sense it, and in some way, it's sort of a wall that i'm rushing to meet, or is rushing to meet me. sometimes i think of the line from an old genesis song - "and i'm hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway."
no, that's not quite it, though. it's not quite that.
ironically, despite my beign annoyed earlier, and the slightly wary eye of the night manager, it's the two guys sitting on the far side of the woman that end up making a mess, knocking a large glass of water across tha bar, an inland sea forming around her slice of carrot cake. she, however, thinks it's great, and helps them clean it up - it's a chance to talk to someone. that i understand. i feel bad that, ironically, i've pretty much ignored her.
here's what the future feels like: an ocean that i'm being carried ever deeper into, like when i would go to the beach and wade farther and deeper out, until i was just able to keep my nostrils clear of the water by bobbing up and down with the waves. there was always a mix of exhiliration, of freedom, and of fear.
there's a certainty in the water, in the overwhelming immenseness of it stretching before you, with the familiarity of the shore receding behind you. there's certainty in the buoying strength of the waves, and in the pull of the undertow at my feet. it's all out there, both the terrible and the possible.
she's gone now. someone seems to have paid her bill, and i wonder if the well-intended notionbackfired - does she feel conspicuous, self-conscious for the first time this evening?
there's a pause, maybe a glint of sheepishness. a quiet mutter of thanks, then she announces happily that she's going home to watch "king of the hill," then go to bed.
she exits cafe right, leaving all us other crazy people sitting at the bar, listening quietly to music, thinking of words and worrying about the sea.
Posted by Rob at July 16, 2006 11:02 PM
Comments
love this post.
Posted by: Ami at July 18, 2006 08:03 AM