It’s poetically calm on my normally cacophonous street – the earliest hours of Monday morning still morphing out of late Sunday. I take time before a shower, after a day of work that took me far more time that I should have liked, to sip deliberately on a cold beer and watch the last stragglers pay their bar bills and the roaming street dogs give up on getting some lucky leftovers of street-vendor hotdog buns. An occasional nondescript car passes and a few garbled conversations at the street level three stories below are barely audible. The precious quiet and cool breeze is ripe for reflection. I drink my beer slowly out of a teacup.
I didn’t cook today. I actually barely ate today. Quiet and alone in my apartment, nothing seemed to really call out to me so I didn’t insist. I ignored lunch. For dinner, I let the Chinaman with his corner stir-fry stand whip up a vegetarian lo mein for me and I ate my dish without conversation, watching the nearby bar owner pull down and lock the metal gate then nod assuredly at the Chinaman. When the barman had walked out of sight, I suddenly noticed how the salty soy had stretched my tongue, and I ate quickly so I could get back to my apartment and drink water.
Recently I received a scathing letter from an angry friend who had lost the courage to talk to me, or indeed anyone else, in person. It came just days before I received an e-mail from another dear friend: “I am sorry, amiga, money is too tight to visit for New Years. Please take care and I will try to see you in March.” Her letter came on the same day I was told by my family that my offer to cook at a future family gathering would be more of consternation than could possibly be a source of a pleasure. And this affirmation came one day after my finishing a long, enveloping book – the end of an enrapturing adventure and the marked entrance into that limbo before availing myself of my next literary journey. And, appropriately, this literary adventure limbo coincided with my choosing to postpone plans to meet someone for a late lunch today, opting hungrily for a day of revered silence. The moment is indeed ripe for reflection.
My dog looked imploringly at me as I gulped down the water, her nose tapping just at my knee as I stood by the sink. So when I reached for the beer, I also brought my hand to the still soft fur under her chin and motioned for her to follow me. All too joyously, she kept at my heels.
She’s out here on the porch too now, watching the occasional nothings proudly through the crosshatched metal, as if entrusted with some unspoken lofty mission. I try in vain to accompany her gaze, but my eyes only succeed in taking in the blurring street stage, with the dim lights a cue that evening has exited. This is the quietest now that it will ever be here.
A visitor who stayed in my apartment with his guitar and the spirit of heavenly song once gave me a drawing of the view from this porch. He wrote mostly of the gods embracing this porch and then embracing him and embracing me. I pat the dog’s neck and bring the teacup up to my lips.
The beer is cold and bitter and makes me shiver, just a bit.
Just beautiful, Mel :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a truly beautiful text although it made me sad, you sounded so lonely. Were you?
ReplyDeleteOn a different note, once again congratulations on great writing. You know how to involve the reader in your story, which is more than can be said of several so-called writers.