Sunday, March 17, 2013

Eleanor Rigby, I, you and me.

It was a clear night, otherwise.

Music, gaiety, wine, laughter. A typical Friday night of cities that don't sleep, just move fluidly from one moment to the next. Here is not found that pause between breath; the pause that gathers, remembers, ponders before letting go. This time is one of movement so constant and stacked that all and one sensory experience feel the same.

It was one more such night. I was stringing myself along the conveyor belt of a "fun time"..... wine, dancing, dinner, live music, stars, water... all and everything without the pause. Stumbled into an elegant wine bar full of people doing exactly the same. Absorbed in music that even the musicians couldn't hear, without missing a beat.

Among this crowd of revelers, one other walked in looking for her place. She attempted to sit down but the server told her the table was already allotted. She looked for a face but couldn't see one. Not because she is partially blind. There were not faces to see, just one large mass of movement without purpose. She didn't see anyone and nobody saw her. So she picked up her cane and walked out into the clear night of dimly lit souls.

Perhaps if the table wasn't allotted to me, I would not have seen her either. Or maybe it was because I was looking for myself, that I couldn't bear to let her go. It was no selfless act when I rushed out and slid my arm in hers, asked her if she would come back for a while for the music? No, she answered. She would come back, but not for the music; she had really come looking for conversation.

It wasn't her that I smuggled back into the cozy wine bar. I had reached out to my future, alone on a chilly evening and wanted to wrap it up with her warm smile.

For the next hour, her eyes twinkled with light as she regaled us through the operas of Salzburg, the streets of Paris, the summer of Malaga. It felt like spring in Sausalito. She led the path to her home, where she drew me into lines, black and white for that is her world now. And all around her, the walls were adorned with colors of a different decade, a different continent she had captured and removed from time. We will meet again today, to talk, to listen to Tango and share a cup of tea.

But what about the others? What about me? All the lonely people......where do they all belong.