A Familiar Face

There’s a man here at this tapas place whom I once tried to impress — I think I failed. Alone at a four-person table, his meal scattered over half of it, he abruptly walks off, stiff, food unfinished. But maybe it is finished: all he’s left behind are potatoes and water.

As I try to figure out whether I know him a woman passes in the street whom I dislike. I don’t remember who she is or where I know her from, but her face peering in the open awning produces a distinctly negative feeling in me; I’m sure I’ve known both of these people.

The man who dislikes me sat near me in a tapas restaurant while a woman I avoid peered in at the street. Is it any wonder I could find a glass of wine in the afternoon pleasant? Do each of the three of us struggle facing others? Do I drink because I myself belong to the ranks of those whom I dislike or who dislike me? Mark Twain had a saying about not wanting to be a part of any group that wanted him. And what did he do with his alone time? Probably used it to write about how silly we all are.

do I like me in my sleep

swiftly comes the reaper, as what is sown ripens. The harvest comes even while seeds are planted — how? If I seek a reprieve before the harvest of my shortcomings then the reprieve itself must be a sowing and the sowing a harvest and the harvest, far from a reprieve, itself a passionate, burning test of all that is (through the lens of youth) tempered by past encounters with a fear that taints or soils all things…you need soil for a planting yet no one knows the magic that causes the seed to grow…nor the cost, for we do not pay it…do we?

Some say there are those who have “peaked” in high school, achieving the most successful version of themselves during these halcyon years. I don’t believe sitting at the tapas place yesterday seeing people who dislike me or whom I dislike was a halcyon moment…it seems instead this concept of peaking is seen when what is inside allows us to flourish in the moment…without feeling trapped. One’s skin may feel tight, even uncomfortably so, but the potentials seem infinite. By that measure I’m certain I peaked in Florence, twenty-three years gone now, sitting in cafes and restaurants, wandering through museums, writing incessantly. Come to think of it even though there was pain I celebrated each moment — that’s what counts, right?

I still do the same — with fewer museums and more evening child tuck-ins, children who hardly need tucking in anymore, so I shall soon wander museums informed by having tucked them in but not needed for that any more (skin so tight it hurts)— it’s just this beloved mode of being doesn’t flourish quite as well here and now. Maybe I’m a similar person in most ways but this isn’t a “peak” moment — is it? — I have to say that with such a beautiful family, money, house, travel, challenging projects, writing and a flexible schedule it’s seems possible I may be at the height of my life. Why is it more disturbing than longing for Florence knowing that I may ever after this long for now when it is gone?

Why isn’t it enough to be that person I so much like to be (and perhaps I am, whispers the echo)? The jock peaking in high school built similar structures around him or herself the rest of their life: becoming a salesperson, an amateur athlete, a husband to a wife who holds firm the prom dream (and what’s wrong with that?) Do I think the Prom Queen wouldn’t marry and love them regardless of pronoun even or especially fat and balding? But does the prom queen love themself?

I have judged, yet now as I seem to have had my peak (didn’t I?…wasn’t Florence it?…or if somehow it’s now isn’t everything downhill from here? Am I really so inflexible towards finding new ways to excel?) I wonder if it’s okay to have a “peak” mode of being. Maybe there’s a better way but since part of my peak modality is constant questioning I keep asking. Is it acceptable to peak in high school?…or have we all become so flexible we can forget the high school dream?

(I think there’s no we all — I’m this one guy having filet mignon in the afternoon and trying to finish it before my family comes to pick me up to look at a new house…there’s this old guy [read: 1–11 years older than me] who keeps appearing at the window holding a baby — I bet that guy’s a real estate investor [read: owns a former home that he rents and a lakeside cabin that he Airbnb’s, and has a partner who manages an 8-plex for their group — he was a dentist so he could do it himself but he’d rather spend his retirement taking photos and bouncing the grandkids except that damn Airbnb keeps distracting him…and the refinance] and lives in a multi-million dollar Berkeley house and is watching his grandchild for his daughter who has a husband who has a major role in a tech startup. But what does the daughter do?)

Pretty sure it’s a blended Yes to the above questions, by the way, despite the fact that grandpa probably both breaks the mold and epitomizes the conservative successful Berkeley patron. Even if one never lives again as in high school, at least the moment did happen; the high school dream was real, wasn’t it? Filtering the world through my mind is as real as anything can be, for a human, and my mind hasn’t forgotten high school. Nor has it forgotten my own personal peak returning from Florence. And then there is the question of now.

I may never see the place above again, but even now noticing that road carved high into the mountain at the edge of the Balkan valley, I recall the mists of crossing. I’m freed for a moment to pass back over that high road. Dreaming to integrate past events into my psyche I enjoy returning to those places in memory. Returning in memory I generate a context for current perceptions. For now.

twisted perception holds truths telescopes don’t reveal by twisting what’s seen behind the lens. Or un-twisting

Writing at Cafe Strada, which I’ve been at far more than any other, my writing is an integrative tool. Similar to sleeping. Wanting to recall the subject and the mode of this piece, and laughing inside feeling a descending calm — then suffering a recurrent panic — and yet the calm rolls in, a tide which will eventually roll out again. Waves of calm and panic on a longer-period ebb and flow tide. The current at the moment is calm, gently soothing the moments of panic.

dreaming I awake yet waking dream

The Tapas afternoon where I recognized the two non-friends seems far away now. I am calmer although I believed I was calm then; I actually was heated. The inspiration for this exercise was antipathy yet the waitress is friendly. Do I leave her out because she’s positive, or because there seems to be no real positive or negative spark in our interaction? I only describe the heat of dislike warming me. Who describes a cold fire or an empty bed (still, empty beds with rumpled sheets tell stories of lifetimes spent in dreams)?

The landscape changes because I’ve been to Vegas for a several day work trip and my sleep schedule is off. I feel dreamy here even after I lay awake last night feeling terror that my life passes while my son looks at a computer screen instead of interacting with…me. I find I want to ride the long wave of drowsy contentment after the a cup-and-a-half of coffee, see how far I can take this before I have to face my fears in work and investment, family and love.

I recognize no one at this tapas place today but the staff. Integrating heated angst before traveling with the divergent spaciousness of days in Vegas, I feel differences sinking in, feel hope that my life will be more than sitting in a tapas restaurant seeing people I dislike and who dislike me and ignoring people who like me or at least approach me positively.

This hope has a familiar feel, almost cinematic. True Love’s kiss: what if the Cruel Stepmother, instead of The Prince, woke Sleeping Beauty from her dream? After all, who knows you better, the people you grow up with or someone random from nowhere? Would you rather spend the most important moment of your life with an enemy you’ve known all your life, or with a celebrity admired from afar. Think of it!

do we flash from place to place in dream or from moment to moment of awareness over years

I hit a boundary, this moment hardens into one of a string of conscious pearls crossing twenty-three years between here and a plane ride back from Florence, a calm personal presence I seldom feel. That travel day was liminal time in-transit from Florence wherein I met three women not to be partners and yet was myself, at ease more than nearly ever — the pearl of consciousness grasped. For a moment, here, as the day warms and coffee sets in, I feel acceptance. Perhaps it transfers to others and I’m surrounded — even alone — not by those whom I dislike or who dislike me, but by comrades and potential friends.