October312009
10/31/09 - The 3PM Crab Feast.
What is your schedule like today?
Mom wanted to know. She had bought crabs from the market this morning - still alive, rattling the plastic bag where they were held.
Though it’s a Saturday, finding that common time with my parents proved to be no easy task; our workload concentrates most heavily over weekends. After some discussion, we finally secured an opening in the afternoon - the hour between three and four - to hold our crab feast.
When I arrived at my parents’ apartment, the table was already set and the two plates of crabs, its centerpiece. On each of our mats was a small dish carrying sauce made with vinegar, ginger and sugar; when seafood is fresh, a humble dip is all the complement it needs.
Was it a late lunch, or an early dinner?
We mused while cracking shells and scooping out cream from carapaces. In the end, we decided it was simply a meal invented.
***
At the Burger Joint in the Haight, San Francisco (July).
Andrew and I stopped by to have a snack before meeting Alison that afternoon. I ordered a plate of French Fries for the both of us. As I waited at the counter, zoned out reading a sign there, the cashier suddenly exclaimed, It’s such a gorgeous day, huh?
Yes it is! I smiled.
And it was. Outside, the sun brilliant, breezes cool.
Sometimes, she sighed, I am shocked that we live in a place like this.
***
In my junior year at Penn, I saw a man crouching on the grass outside my dorm one day. It took me a moment to understand that he was kissing the ground. He did it several times, rising and bowing low. I could not completely comprehend the sight, but I held on to it.
***
Those fragments above, I have been saving for the day when I can say, I feel the same way about being where I am now.
Today is the day.
The crabs were certainly worth smiling about, yet more than that, there are my days, though busy, still malleable and filled with possibilities for innovation. I am ecstatic to find this true not just with time, but also the other relationships I count around me: with people, with the city, with my work, with myself.
Lately, I have been shocked to live in a place like this.
***
This path, marked through space by ponds, statues, trees, sculpture, and steps, leads to a question - to a tall portico open to gardens on both faces and with entrances to the library and the museum on either side. The climax of the axis is a choice, not an instruction.
— from Chambers for a Memory Palace (Lyndon & Moore)
