When I get to the cafe, Lucy and Buddy greet me. Dog greeting is very physical; hugs all around. Their excitement is infectious. The two of them mill around me, brushing up against my legs with an urgency that is unmistakable. They are glad to see me.
Ricks' dog Tug, gets even more excited. On Wednesday evenings, for "open no-mike", Tug is just a blur, wiggling and shaking so much and so quick that his outline becomes indistinct and he morphs into a fast, soft and quivering ball of dog hair. He quickly greets everyone and then heads for the dog toy box to start the evening of fetch, take-away and find the treat. More than anyone, Tug loves open no-mike. I know that he is somewhat disruptive, especially if he gets his chompers on a squeeky toy. I like that I am no longer irked by his doggyness. I have learned a lot about democracy from those dogs.
In the morning, Lucy becomes Nurse Lucy and treats Buddy's wound. He has an open sore on his chest that she delicately cleans every day. I want to put one of those old fashioned nurse caps on her for the treatment. She didn't go to doctor school. Did she get her license off the internet?
I take Lucy and Buddy for a walk. Not much of a walk, mind you. Just enough to get to where the juicy grass grows down by the channel. I play tourist and they play cow.
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About Me
- roberto kiam borderlineartist@gmail.com
- I live in a quaint, little town, plagued with the specter of speculation and commerce. I am trailer trash,with wishes for good dishes. I shoulda died long ago, but like a rescue dog, didn't. I am indescribably scattered. I speak three languages. I walk a tenuously, true path. I am lucky. For myself, for others. God, it is said, protects orphans, widows and the innocent.
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Propaganda is so obvious in hindsight. It is the subtle day to day indoctrination that sneaks up on me. I usually catch it shortly after I have put a slithering, silent judgment out on someone. I caught myself at it again first thing this morning in Oxford’s (Ohio) local café. The café is a nice place for Texas toast smothered in maple syrup, but I find it to be in other respects, dull. The clientele is a mix of largely foul mouthed over achieving college students and townies who are tired of eating at home for various reasons. And one drifter. Oxford actually has only one drifter in town who doubles as the village idiot. C’est moi.
I hit the café for an early morning carb fix. The tables are neck to neck. I nod at the gentleman sitting close enough for me to overhear his dialogue with his more elderly companion. Steve and I go back. Not kindred, but well enough to keep track of the external facts. The nice or not so nice quality that Steve expresses, depending on the listener’s frame of mind, is the ability to talk non stop with a calm intensity about any subject that drifts across his mental landscape. No thought ever went inarticulated. I generally avoid this type of person as I am a good listener and the sheer magnitude of the project exhausts me.
This morning he began by describing his happy family life. My ears perked. Steve and Janis married the same time that I married and also birthed an only child, a daughter, the same age as my daughter. Their new furniture arrived yesterday. A beautiful mission table that glitters under the sun on their patio and looks just as good indoors. And how the family can all sit about the table simultaneously for where one child gathers many follow. The Daughter happily married is a homebody. This is where my mind blurs and I begin to picture Steve holding court. I can feel my lip curl into its reflexive sneer. Now Steve begins the long trilogy of the family vacations, past, present and future and the special events associated with each odyssey that served to strengthen the family tie. Yes, I mutter silently and I bet you eat roast pig with bright red apples stuffed in both ends.
I’m starting to have trouble digesting Texas. I finish up, swallowing hole the last three mouthfuls and prepare to leave. Steve’s buddy has heigh hoed and Steve too is wrapping it up. We exchange a few niceties, (authentic self) and Steve phones intervenes. Whew. I depart.
I feel kind of morose. Where are my maps, quick, I need my maps. I want to get in the car and go, find some home, some place that has maybe a mission table. Now the snake begins to lick his lips. Remember the snake is male. The fish is female. Gee, I think, what if I coulda lived a more normal life. Maybe I would be planning out next Sundays family brunch.
Framed.
It begins to dawn on me that Steve is from the same neighborhood as Sis Matriarch. Oopps.
Fundamentally life is unsound. Every day I sift through its shrieking unsoundness. Even my beloved yoga dictates to me, come hither, do it my way little seeker.
I keep thinking it is me who is unsound, but I am not the one incessenatly sounding off about the greatness of my life, veryday pinching myself to remind myself of my happiness.
I remember Steve when he was just like me. More of a being than a doing. In fact I think he coined the phrase be. Now he is fishing for Marlin with a high tech spear off the Keys.
The earlier comment along with this one belongs as a response to "The Voice of God" but maybe this is more appropriate. I think I need to cultivate silence. My mind is too filled with monkey chatter. I am suffering from I don't know what to do next and how come you seem to have something figured out at least for yourself envy.
I am certain that Steve left the cafe muttering: poor Gida, so busy being that she forgot what and how to do.
I see that everyday for the past close to 30 years, Steve has managed to carve out some kind of existence that makes this tiny bit of sense for him. I'm pretty sure it is monotonous for him, being a very creative being. He prospered his ole man's trucking company and managed to stay with the more mundane aspects of his family life. Good for Steve. And good for me for choosing something that suits me more. Not a drifter or a village idiot. The light side of these alter e goes: a seeker. I am still convinced that there are communities that feel more spiritually integrated than the ones that I have spent a major part of my life in, gasping for air.
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