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June 26, 2008Serving SuggestionPlace between two roasted garlic TriscuitsBUT FIRSTadmire the beauty and power of your shroom. Turn it slowly in your hands. Take note of the gradations of color, the blue veining, the wrinkles and gills so concentrated with magic it’s already radiating in your hand… Wow, that was an awkward wake-up call. Stopped to phone what I‘ve always thought was the art studio number of the man who was man enough for me, the ex who is also a mycologist (mushroom expert), and started leaving a message about my column on the power and beauty of shrooms, to ask what is the technical name for the gills (it’s gills). There was a pause, when I thought he picked up the line after screening, and I chuckled about my message, but the silence continued and I asked hello? hello? Then I realized his young daughter, the daughter he fathered after I left him and went to Italy, had picked up, not he. “I’m sorry—is your dad there?” “He’s sleeping,” said the tiny voice. I made my exit, having already left the message, which probably includes our exchange. It never occurred to me his child had access to that phone. I don’t know why at 8:45 p.m. he was asleep and his daughter was not, but I rather enjoyed the encounter, apart from my blunder. It gave me momentary entrance into someone else’s life, a Sunday evening vignette of a sleeping man and his curious daughter. I’ve heard plenty about her, but have never met her. OOOH, MAKES ME WONDERwhat would have happened had I not left him, because it was a unilateral move, my decision to end the relationship. Well, a lot of things would have had to be different, but in a parallel universe, the girl would have been my daughter. He (“Mark Marsh” I have called him) is a highly fertile man, and my turn would have come. I may have told this story before, but he came into my office to have lunch with me, don’t remember if I introduced him around, and afterwards a female coworker (rather oddly, I thought) felt free to come right up and ask me, “Is he a very sexual person?” Well, I guess he must be, sister, if you picked up on it in two seconds flat! He certainly has enough children to show for it. Zahra at the Café also zeroed right in on his powerful vibe. He’s kind of an epic American type, like Robert Ryan or Gary Cooper. A radical free-thinker. Anyway—just the usual sort of “what if” speculation—except that I have always known, or perhaps convinced myself, I am not cut out for the live-in and children trip—but suspect if I had been, it would have been with this guy. I always thought we’d end up back with each other, and I still can’t rule that out because, hey, the future hasn’t happened yet. I USED TO THINKthere was an answer hanging in the air, as to how something is going to turn out, like who’s going to win the game tomorrow. Like there’s a marker of truth in the universe that has the information and “if only” we knew it, well, we’d place a huge, huge bet on it. I guess I’m thinking of it in terms of an all-knowing Narrative Voice, who relates the present with knowledge of the future, like the Stage Manager in Our Town. I was trying to explain to a friend that whether you believe in predetermination or not, that answer IS there, something IS going to happen, but even though no one can know what it is, the answer IS “out there” somewhere. She was saying, no that can’t be. If it hasn’t happened yet, the answer can’t be out there. I’m glad I didn’t try to win a logic debate, but today I firmly believe the answer is NOT out there. We make continual choices that make up the now and to say the answer is out there robs the present of its possibilities…well, it robs the power of now of its power, because a new now is always being created—that’s why we’re all “in” it. We are in the present, in the now. There’s nowhere else to be. And there are so many factors as to what influences the now, it’s virtual insanity to think we can predict the future. I AM A WORLD-FAMOUS FISHMONGERFor instance, one of the market owners at Pike Place Market in Seattle, started with the premise that he could and would create the life he had in mind by telling himself, “I am a world-famous fishmonger!” Whatever your dream for your life, he says, “Declare it like it’s so,” and then, as Jean Luc Picard would say, “Make it so.” Every watch a TV show—even the news—and they keep showing the same teasers over and over, to keep us watching? Are our attention spans so corrupted that we have to be reminded every few minutes that there’s more to come, like we didn’t just see the same clip? I don’t want to know what’s coming up. I want to experience it as it’s happening, as it unfolds. I don’t want a synopsis of a movie. I want the movie to tell me the story. In the movie “Closer,” a man involved with a stripper says something that causes her to warn, “I’ll call security,” But they’re not at the club, and he replies, “There is no security.” WE MIGHT AS WELL ALL FACE IT.There is no security. Even if you’re with someone you utterly trust, who makes you feel safe and secure, there is no guarantee, not a marriage license, not a promise, not good intentions, that the situation won’t change down the road. I’m not saying never count on anyone, just be present at this moment. Live your live as it’s happening, don’t tease yourself with what’s coming up. You don’t know what it is. So my idea of how something might turn out is just a serving suggestion. NA. GA. HA.I recently told someone something was not going to happen. Because I know. Because right now, I know that thing is not going to happen. Because right now, that’s my reality and it’s going to have to be his as well. He gave me a gift that I lost no time in telling him was beautiful but inappropriate because we don’t have that type of relationship and never will. Hard to say, harder to hear, but why waste his time with false hope? I can’t admit to this person that I don’t know, that no one knows, that I may come around, that I could get closer to him and see him a different way. It’s just not happening now, and I don’t expect it to. But I can’t know. I could surprise the hell out of myself. “It’s never going to happen between us.” “I’ll love you forever.” Those who utter these words may wholeheartedly believe them to be true. But seriously, people, they’re only true now, at the moment of the utterance, even if that moment lasts 10 years, 20 or 40 years. PEOPLE DON’T LIKE IT.No one wants to admit their long-time lover or companion or spouse could stop loving them. So we invent this crazy idea of “forever” and even sign contracts about it, promising each other we will always feel what we can never promise we will always feel. Get married if you want to. Because it’s what you want now. But don’t confuse “I do” with “I always will.” Besides death and taxes, no one knows what will always be. I myself have wished that someone had done me the favor of saying outright to me, “It’s never going to happen.” And I would have expected myself to move on from there. But even if he had, guess what—he doesn’t know that! My shrink once told me to give up a fantasy that brought more frustration than reward. But you see, Dr. S., there is always hope, because, hey, the future hasn’t happened yet. The answer is NOT out there. No one knows it. There is no marker of truth. SHIT! PISS! FUCK! CUNT! COCKSUCKER! MOTHERFUCKER! TITS! FART! TURD! TWAT!George Carlin is dead. Long live George Carlin! I shed a tear in tribute. OK, I WAS WRONG.It’s not always sunny in the Mission. Frigid San Francisco is back, and it’s fine by me. But I’ll never forget the warm embrace of that blessed night on the rooftop, the navy sky of scattered stars, the grey clouds rimmed with brilliant white as the moon passed in and out of them, the caressing breeze as welcome as a surprise tap on the shoulder from someone you love. 17th and GUERREROis not the most attractive corner in San Francisco, but hidden away nearby is a most attractive café. I’m not going to let H Café, though the most comfortable so far, monopolize my latte business like I did Café International, to the exclusion of all the other interesting coffee houses in the ‘hood. I stumble upon Café Petra and it has what I’m looking for, coffee, free internet and lunch, and a pleasant, welcoming atmosphere. No couch, but wall-length wooden benches covered with colorful rugs, textiles, pillows of mixed design, fronted by painted tables and chairs facing them. On a day I go there for lunch with friend Saand it’s silent as a library, every one of a dozen patrons on a laptop, lined up as if in study carrels. GIVE ME LEISURE EVERY TIMEOne mural is a desert with camels, featuring, as the name Petra would suggest, stone columns and buildings, rock formations. The other mural is Grecian in imagery. Curious mix. Floral stained glass panels above the picture windows. The proprietors are Asian, or at least the counter staff. The ceiling is covered in grass mats, with mini railroad lanterns stationed here and there. Six shelves of books. Eclectic mix. Romance novels, a 1996 Poet’s Market, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Looking for Mr. Goodbar and on the table beside me, Joys of Irish Humor, featuring Robert Beersohn’s “The Dignity of Labor.” Labor raises honest sweat; Labor gives you rye and wheat; Labor makes your riches last; Labor makes you swell with pride; Labor keeps you fit and prime; I’M NOT AFRAID OF A HARD DAY’S WORK–I’m incapable of it. I mean, I could write all day, no problem, but as to the rest, the jobs and careers of the world, I’m just not interested, and no longer have the emotional stamina to act like I am. I insist on living the way I want to, on my butt with my laptop at hand. I declare it to be so: I am a world-class wordmonger! A riot of kids bursts in bouncing beach balls and creating general good-humored havoc. Ah, youth. The owner is patient and accommodating. I am loving Café Petra. My neighborhood is expanding. I don’t have time to miss Lower Haight. There is too much life going on here, walking the streets, frequenting the bars and restaurants, shopping the many markets, waiting for buses, hanging around 16th St. BART. Safeway and its miles of aisles can move over for the shop-local specialty grocery and deli, Bi-Rite on 18th. Serving suggestion for after your shroom course: their Orange Cardamom ice cream with a ginger snap and a sprig of mint. Eat it up on the roof.
------------------------------------------------------------ By the light of the orange moon
Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. copyright Alexandra Jones 2008 |
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