thirty-one
31. (10/14/2009)
oh to be young and in love and in paris (after Baudelaire)
G and H sitting in a small café in Detroit.
It is quaint.
It is lovely.
Wrought iron tables and chairs.
Overpriced scones and cappucinos.
It will be out of business in a few hours.
Or weeks.
Who knows, but the imminence looms over all of the conversations.
G
I wonder if somewhere else in the world someone else is having the same conversation.
H
I don’t think it’s to ridiculous of a thing to assume.
G
Really?
H
Yeah. I mean. We just got her, expressed a few pleasantries, and then said nothing for close to forty-five seconds and looked at the menus.
G
I guess you’re right.
H
I can’t believe how much they charge for a cappuccino.
G
I can’t believe you drink cappucinos.
H
Sometimes.
Only sometimes.
Silence.
G
I want to wear stripes.
H
Uh-huh.
G
I want to go to sleep and wake up in Paris in the nineteen sixties enjoying cappucinos before the Americans get them.
SO many people I know have been to SO many different places and when I wake up, I feel only slightly compelled to exit my bedroom.
And even then it’s only for coffee.
H
You’ve been to many different places.
G
Where?
H
Here for example.
G
Yes,
I’ve been here and there per se.
To many places.
But never to many different places.
They are all the same.
But I often think to myself, maybe I am just the same in different places.
That there is little to no solution to this problem and that the world is really just different through different eyes.
H (back to the menu)
What about a “Rabbit Salad”?
G
Oh, to be in love and young in paris,
Or to be old and tired in moscow,
Or to be middle-aged and stressed in Boca Raton.
To be exiting the womb in Baltimore, Maryland,
To be entering the grave in Frankfurt, Germany.
To be questioning your own existence in some place exotic:
Cuba…Nigeria…Philadelphia!
H
Philadelphia’s not all that exotic.
G
No, the real Philadelphia! Deep in the heart of the amazon rain forest.
Imagine white water rafting and thinking about your kids, the ones you’ve never met, but still send alimony checks to.
Or walking through Auschwitz and remembering the friends from college, high school or middle school who’s yearbooks are signed with hopeful marks in your blue gel writer pen: KIT or Keep In Touch. You never did though.
What about the man on the bus three days ago who rubbed up against you accidentally, and then kept doing it, where would you think of him?
H
Did that happen to you?
G
Maybe in front of a particularly moving painting in the Venice Guggenheim, equal apprehension over the rising waters as the thought of that man’s corduroy rubbing slowly up against the tight denim of your Capri pants.
Or what about grandpa?
H
What about him?
G
Where will you think about pulling the plug?
H
I never pulled my grandfather’s plug.
G
I think staring down the grand canyon at the tiny river in the bottom, when you think:
“such a tiny river made such a giant canal.”
And the metaphor for his life won’t be lost.
H
Yeah.
G
For me, though, it’s all nothing in comparison to the moment right now, right here, with you.
H
oh.
G
Because right now there is such potential for anything to happen. We could go to those places. We could live in those worlds, those new times, those new feelings. We could be in love in paris.
H
Do you love me?
G
Or we could just stay here and that would be all right, too.
We could just sit here, in Detroit, at this café.
And drink six dollar cappucinos.
And think about al of these things.
H
Yeah.
…
let’s do that for now.
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