Here and There

(photo by Sarah Moon)

"What do you expect," she asked?

"What do you mean?"

"The way you are.  You think things will turn out differently?  It's all interrelated."

"What do you mean?"

"You can't stand outside and inside at the same time is what I mean.  You want to be this and that, here and there, but you can't."

"I thought you could.  Isn't that what the koans were about?"

"Jesus.  You can't live your life like a fucking koan.  What are you, five?"

He sat there looking out to the crowd of people passing by.  People were with families, with boyfriends and girlfriends.  They were going to see a movie or going to dinner.  He looked serene but profoundly unhappy.  She looked irritated.  They weren't enjoying their dinner now.  I felt sorry for them.  Really.  I think I'd been through all that before and before.  I poured more sake trying to relax the tension I felt. I mean, it wasn't me for once.  Their conversation was both fascinating and stupid at the same time.  I wanted to ask them what they were really talking about.  They were talking around it instead of about it.  They would get to that later.  They were still in the philosophical throes of the conflict.  He had done something.  Particularly.  More than once.  He seemed to be meditating now looking outwardly and inwardly, I guess, being here and there, this and that.

I drank the last of the sake and got up to leave them to their long unhappiness.  For once, I could get up and walk away from it.  In fifteen or twenty steps, I'd begin to feel better.  Maybe I'd get some ice cream.  Something.

"Goodbye," called the waitress.  "Thank you."

I turned and waved in the last of the evening's light.