Holiday Arrival

Walking into the grocery store, I saw a big steak prominently displayed at the entrance, not at all near the meat counter.  The marketing worked.  I bought it.  I would cook it that night, I thought, as the weather cooled and cleared.  I would have a big steak on the grill and a good salad with avocado, and I would cook rice and broccoli.

But the afternoon grew late and I had some errands to run.  There had been a beauty and a sadness to the day and I felt a growing fatalism that had taken root earlier as I walked around the neighborhood near my studio.  New businesses had opened up since I'd last been there.  How long?  It seemed everything had transformed.  A new Italian restaurant with a big bar and veranda painted all in a creamy white had opened next to the tapas bar that had somehow expanded, too, adding a large canopy and sidewalk tables.  Next to that was a music store selling violins, violas, and cellos.  I could see a teenaged girl dressed black through the big plate window as she stood in front of a small group playing from a sheet of music on the stand before her.  Next came a new fashion store for women into which I wanted to wander, but without a companion I would not be allowed to sit and watch the show as women tried on the expensive clothing and accoutrements.

Across the street and down a short alley, I saw a cleverly designed sign, clean and bold and confusing in name.  I wandered down and looked in.  There was not much to see but for some women's undergarments and yoga clothing.  Then I noticed the big open studio in back empty but full of natural light.  Next door to that, a big window let on to a tall, tobacco colored space with bolts of leather and work tables holding big sewing machines and hole punches and twine.  Leather bags were displayed upon the wall above which were shelves holding huge boxes like something from a 1920's movie set.  On the corner of the alleyway, another store was being readied, a new sign in gold on the window announcing men and women's fine clothing, the store empty yet but for dark wood closets and shelves.  Back on the main street, a frame shop had moved in next to which a new bicycle store had opened selling costly bikes from around the globe.

And on, and on.

And my excitement grew dull.  This all required someone to share it with, someone with whom you had the same aesthetics and enthusiasms in common.

Kaboom! 

Now, running my errands in the beautifully fading afternoon light, I no longer wanted to grill a steak for myself alone.  It was too much.  And so. . . I opted for sushi.

And there nothing was very right.  They had decided I was not correct about the music, I guess, for cheesy melodies for teenagers in their thirties dripped from ubiquitous speakers in the ceiling.  The waitress asked me if I was having "the usual" to which I nodded.

"You need change," she said.  "We have many other kind of food."

"I eat different things when I am not here," I told her.

"You need try something else."

When the food arrived, it seemed not to sit on the plate properly.  I began to worry.  It would grow dark early.  There would be a long, inevitable night ahead.

Wash.  Spin.  Repeat.

Dinner finished, I sat with the last of the sake and an open notebook, a large, leather portfolio that I bought many, many years ago, jotting down notes, scenes, phrases. . . .  A fellow I know from town who remembers me from when I still went about town stopped to say hello.  He is a stolid family man with an enviable wife and two beautiful daughters and a well appointed house that announces who they are.  He asked me about work and I him, and after a few moments he went in to pick up his order to go.

Things seem to have gone wrong somewhere, I thought, and I don't know what it was though I could more than guess at when.  The terror, of course, was that I hadn't any hope of going back and fixing any of it.

When I pulled onto my street, I saw cars surrounding my neighbors house.  He and his girlfriend were having another of their lovely parties on a beautifully numinous night.  I pulled into my driveway and stood a moment by the car listening to something in the distance.  The big oaks were just becoming silhouettes.  I could see my cat staring out from the bottom pane of glass at the kitchen door.  I thought of everyone for a moment, of everything.  Then it was gone.

The holidays were here.