"This is my broken heart
This is my bleeding start
This is the way I've come to know you
This is my winding road
This is my way back home
This is the narrow door you know that I will walk through"
The song on repeat...waiting on the platform, walking forth and back, stopping the wind blowing, temperature cold, hills golden waiting to be hiked...commuters and their rush to board the train...BART ride to the city...and clear knowledge that I have absolutely no desire to be going to my destination...Embarcaderro station and the walk up the steps,the sounds of the 'Jazz Man' for 15 seconds--his sax soft, unimposing, a graceful secular prayer to start one's day...and then the escalator to street level. This has always ranked up there with photographs I wish I had taken (or ought to take)...looking skyward--the rise of buildings, underground tunnels to a world of light. Starbucks...venti coffee...and the walk toward 201 Mission.
Arrive on the floor...the faces. "How was Costa Rica?" again and again. A quiet response of "Incredible, wonderful, not yet back." And those faces--the ones I don't know well...some of which I will over time and others that will stay as they are in my memory. It was good to see them--all of them. So many possibilities--do they know it? Are they moving forward? Will it remain a passive resignation to be carried forward? I wonder. And I don't. I know only bits and pieces for the most part with an exception of chunks of others. Like arriving on the floor...will we arrive elsewhere together by choice? Or will it always be taking a step backward to move forward? Thoughts about motion...I'd rather not go backward...glimpses of the here and now.
Spoke with one of my favorite people for I don't know how long...was good to see them...and their lightness. I miss the energy, the theories, the perspective. A perspective so different from my own but such a joy to listen to--an active intelligence, a willing mind that tests and retests itself--one that listens and fights. Fights passionately.
Lunch with friends. Walking, one did that thing with his hands while talking--explains a ridiculous event--pauses and visually takes us in--holds his palms horizontally to the sky--shakes his head--soft laughter. A signature of his. And in the other, a fierce intelligence always processing--even when his chin is in his hand--even when he is stating, "Just water." After sitting down, miscellaneous work conversation and quietness. Three sets of eyes looking in the distance--it's rare to find people who get this, who are not insulted by sharing immediate physical space but allow for some moments of immense distance. When we all looked back at one another--one set of eyes brilliant blue twinkling and the others a deep brown--intense--but smiling. Knowing...it's not about this--as others make it. We walked afterward along the Embarcaderro...freezing...laughing about tourists who wear shorts here thinking it to be warm...but September will be wonderful and perfect and embracing. And maybe that is the easiest way to explain their presence in my life: they are like September.
The error messages were completely new and different. The attributes on the database were now Read Only and the history data was not available. The exercised is now different. I realize I need to run the original to understand the causes--the back-up has been redated...dig through files at home.
Coffee with another...a reader of common books and the most genuine person I have met in a long time. No topic is an embarrassment or off limits--it is what it is...and always receptive ears. I could say anything and would feel no judgment, no wall going up, no shock, eyes that say, 'Just Zane.' There is nothing better than just being able to be as you are without the expectations of others pressing on you. The only thing I am expected to be is exactly what I am. Is there anything better? No.