HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I spend the rest of the week in a whirlwind of coffee, L.A. traffic, and Microsoft jargon. After the evening of near silent observance and introspection this is foreign by comparison but more familiar to me than even my own skin. Each morning I break the fog of sleep with the alien sound of this hotel alarm clock. It cuts through slumber like the proverbial butter knife but the after effects lack that sort of soft gooey feeling one would associate with melting butter. Crisp and aware I am into the shower and out into the humid air as quickly as I can be. I drive everywhere with the windows down here in Oz. To do otherwise would seem an affront to this legendary clime. More coffee followed by 8 hours of blablabla and I’m off like a rocket on the freeway to San Diego. A rocket that having lost its boost was loaded onto an old rusted radio flyer and is being wheeled away down the freeway by illegal Mexican immigrants to fund la revolucion. Traffic Jam. This is my first of the week.
Finally arriving in San Diego I meet up with Jana and we share one of those hugs that speaks far more than a thousand words. It says I’ve missed you; welcome home; I love you, my friend and you don’t know how much I’ll miss you when you’ve gone again; and a million other things in a thousand different languages. I can count the number of people with whom I have shared this embrace on one hand, and those people are not who you would think. I’m in rare form as I’ve been slugging coffee all day with a red bull chaser. Heading out to Bj’s (yeah) pizza, we chatter and laugh about old friends, new roommates, and where we are escaping to this year. Jana has two spectacular job offers; one in Denver and one in Pittsburgh working for quite respectable companies. Her office is meeting with her the following day to counter offer and attempt to keep her around; a futile effort. She has a great job, a wonderful house, lives in one of the most beautiful cities in the nation near family, friends, the Pacific Ocean and is revered by her employer and employees alike; and she’s running away. I suppose I find this as a common trait among some of my longer standing friends. We build up everything we want and then cut and run. The “I don’t deserve this� Two-Step. We talk about her recent break up and her fight with her bishop. I can see why someone would dump Jana. She is no striking beauty. Aside from her sparkling laugh and matching eyes there is very little that is aesthetically remarkable about her. Her wit is as dry and cutting as a whip and being intelligent and insightful it can sting just as intensely. Her intelligence makes her bored with people in intimate roles quickly unless they are of the most extravagant caliber. This translates into her demeanor with all the verbosity of Merriam Webster. One would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to notice being the subject of her disdain. So, having tossed yet another relationship onto the pyre of her indifference, she prepares to leave this paradise and run for parts unknown. We spend our time eating, tormenting the waitress mercilessly, and talking with our mouths full of some of the most delicious pizza I’ve had in years. Our grand finale is one of my personal favorite decadents: A pizookie.
Pizookie:
Start with a small pizza pan; fill with an inch deep layer of the richest chocolate chip cookie dough. Bake it until just the top is done and the insides melt like ice on a Virginia summer afternoon, cover with an equally magnanimous amount of vanilla ice cream and serve still in the pan. Caloric, artery clogging heaven!
Making it back to my car, we pull out cd after cd, listening and laughing, trying vainly attempting to fill the void that replaces jocularity when isolated from friends before we part company. Laughing, I repeat a none too uncommon phrase, “I love you� to Jana and her face falls, crashing through floor after floor of the emotional high-rise we’ve been playing in all night. This is it; the monster that’s been hiding on the vestiges of the evening, lurking under the table and in the phone wire for the last few months. I’m praying, kicking, pushing against the air that’s turned thick as concrete around me trying to escape the Mack Truck that is bearing down on me with the certain deadliness of a Tomahawk missile.
“No, you don’t.�
“Of course, I do!�
“No. You don’t. Things have… I have… changed. Nothing is the same.�
Everything in me wants to lie; to tell her that I don’t feel it rolling off her in waves as certain and purposeful as the ocean pulverizing the beach less than a mile away, but I can’t. I owe her honesty.
“I know.�
In broken sentences she tries, as everyone does, to put into words falling far short off their intended purpose, the slippery nuance of human emotion. Jana’s command of the English language is not second to mine own, and still she stutters; defeated by the depression and uncertainty hollowing her out with marauding apathy.
Holding her head on my shoulder, it’s all I can do not to yell at her, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. So I simply pull away, open the door and leave her alone with her sobs. She made this decision and on some sick level, she needs it. So I get in the car and drive away as quickly as gravity and internal combustion can afford, giving her the solitude that she is so maniacally seeking.
In an effort to escape the hollow feeling of the last few minutes I call Cheryl and after several futile attempts manage to make it to her dorms. We goof off, talking to her girls and dodging soccer balls for a while until I have to leave for fear of falling asleep on the drive home. An hour later I’m climbing into bed for a few moments clemency.
