several years ago, when La Taureau and i moved from san francisco (for me it was a move "back home", for La Taureau, it was just another new address), we moved to a neighborhood i'd lived in from 1993 to 1998. many of the shops, restaurants, and bars in the near vicinity i had frequented regularly. in fact, not long after we moved in, i stopped into the liquor store/market on the corner, the owner looked up at me as i walked in and said "long time, no see". suffice it to say, i was somewhat taken aback; either i frequented this liquor store far more than i remember, or this woman has me mistaken for someone else. something tells me it's not the latter....
passing the coffee shop on the corner, i can still remember sitting there on lazy afternoons, either alone or with a few friends, for hours at a time. or stopping in to say hi to friends who worked there. the bar around the corner; i had taken a date there one evening several lifetimes ago, and decided the date was a bust when she started doing shots with the bartender. then there's the laundromat, where after a few "ti many martoonis", i accidentally dumped half of my large latte into the washer as it began the spin cycle. but as i experienced life in this little corner of the world, i had no idea where life would take me. the fact i would someday be jogging past that same corner at 4am with my pregnant wife still asleep across the street is something i never, ever imagined.
back then, i didn't really think much about the future, or where life would take me. i guess i started to think about it, but not quite seriously. now that i am in the future, so to speak, i've come to realize there is a life beyond the here and now. sitting as i am, in a position to look back at my past in such an immediate and intimate setting, it makes me wonder if i may be looking at the same street corner 15 years from now after having gone on yet another unexpected journey through life, and i wonder if i have the vision to recognize myself as i reminisce from a time yet to come.
1 comment:
I have the same sentiments, quite often in fact. It was 21 years ago this week that Pierpont swept me off my feet at our first meeting. A lifetime ago, literally.
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