Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Missing
The notebook returns to my hands with a simple surety that buttresses my spirit as I was not aware it so needed to be buttressed. It feels good to sit and scrawl again, fighting distraction, inertia and the jostles of traffic, a sense of homecoming inscribing itself on my soul. Back to basics. Return of the native. May it ever be so. Anyway, may it be so again soon.
For this morning I’m saying goodbye to four very different things. From the strengh in me gleaned from this bundle of spiral-bound college rule I’m clutching, let me now acknowledge the following things now gone from me:
1. Climate nerds already know what I’m saying here is true, and the rest of you will have to take it on faith: summertime in SF is often the opposite of summer. Cold fog rolls in wind-driven fists under pewter skies and there’s a chill that soaks right down to the bone. Summer arrived on the evening of June 20 this year, but even had I no calendar I’d have known the exact day it happened. That’s because I had occassion to visit the Crissey Field area of the Presidio on four consecutive days, at about the same time of day. The car has a thermometer for outside temperatures, which told this tale: Friday 6/20: 88 degrees. Saturday 6/21: 68 degrees. Sunday 6/22: 58 degrees. Monday 6/23: forty-eight goddamn degrees. Summer is over, suckers. Hope you enjoyed it while you had the chance. It probably won’t warm up again till football season.
2. Goodbye, Claire. Jamie, a bientot. It’s been one hell of a ride, guys - six novels, each in the neighborhood of 1,000 pages. Some of it’s over-written, sure, but much of it was lean, and much was crafted with appropriately lavish attention to detail. The plot was as thick and fast as that of any book I’ve read, and the action could be breathtaking. Many’s the time you made me groan, hiss, or curse aloud while on the bus; many more’s the times I wrenched myself scoliotic by the weight of those fat paperbacks in my messenger bag. It was a journey to savor, again and again and three times thereafter, through all six books. And now the journey is over. Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series is now firmly ensconced in my past. I can start to move forward with my life again. I can start to write, to read non-fiction, to wean myself off the gaelic scottishisms that arise unbidden and in full brogue from my subconscious when I fash myself or have a wee bittern of sporran or something. Great characters, great scenes, great fun to read. It’s been months I’ve been slogging their trail. Goodbye, Claire; take care, Jamie. Don’t let the door catch your kiltrump on your way out.
3. All this was lead-up, wasn’t it, for one real goodbye. It’s not like I’ve got a whole lot of friends at work; I like my colleagues and we get along well but we do not go out or socialize or anything like that. To the extent I’ve met anyone outside my immediate work responsibilies at all, it’s mostly been as a result of my participation in union matters. I got into the union stuff when Scott was the local president of our chapter. He’s always been a good guy and a straight shooter. He built a reputation on hard work and decency. He was among the first to celebrate with me when Zach came home with us a few years ago, and he was among the most frequent to offer me a kind word or “hello” on those days I couldn’t hide my bad mood. He got elected to another union office this year so I have been including him in my correspondence about bargaining, but he never wrote back. Turns out he’s gone - been gone for nearly a month. His nameplate is missing from his desk, which he’d never let get so dusty when he was around. There’s no email extension for him in the network anymore. He had been planning for years to move to the North country, where he had some property. It looks like that’s what he’s done. I didn’t get to say goodbye to him. I regret that. I miss him, and wish him well.
4. My ride: For close to three years I’ve had a strong, silent friend: 1BX. I live right off of Geary, so the 38 would be my usual bus of choice (including the 38L and BX), but Z-bot has been going to day care three days a week right off of California Street so I’ve been riding the 1BX downtown 60% of my mornings. It has always been a boring bus, full of people fixated on their blackberries or newspapers or mp3 players or some such. Office drones, like myself, made up to look good in a cubicle and not willing to share the pleasure of a beautiful morning with any of their co-riders. Like today, when I sat down on an empty bench, across from a mostly empty bench, and within ten minutes was surrounded by beautiful women, standing around me, sitting next to me and across from me, all of them actively ignoring myself and each other as they touched up their manicures, read their Oprah book club selections, thumbed their PDAs or just stared in gorgeous boredom out the windows at San Francisco. Well, those may have been the good times, buddy, and now they may be almost gone. On Monday Zach starts at a new pre-school, well out of the 1BX route. It’s also nowhere near my famous 38 line. In fact, it’s close to only one bus: the Presidi-Go. These are little mini-busses that service the San Francisco Presidio National Recreation Area, where Z will be schooled. I will have to traverse the main parade ground to get a little commuter bus, that will make only one stop on its daily trip from the old Fort to my old office. It’ll be the quietest, least provocative bus ride I could possibly imagine, a disney trip through frisco-land. Z will be doing a 4-day week at the new school so I do still get to ride my fun, grungy 38L downtown on Fridays, and back home every day. I’m shocked to say it but I think I’m actually going to look back fondly on my times riding the 1BX. So long, hot young office staff. If I miss you, you’ll never know it.
What are you going to miss next week?
