We laughed over wine. But, memory served me something more than a warm meal.
Sometimes your past comes to dinner with you. Or perhaps you think it is a part of your past, but really, its an image of something similar but different. I know; I’m not getting to the point. But that’s the point, I don’t know if dinner included a person once known, or if the eyes that I remembered belong to someone else.
In my youthful years, I trod heavily through the world. I stomped and clomped and didn’t watch where I stepped. My travels took be to many doorsteps. Sometimes I was invited in. Sometimes I invited myself in. Most times I stood long enough to let the light of possibility bathe my face, and then I skulked into the shadows again. I liked less light. I am getting over that now. That comes with being honest with yourself. But I digress. Skulking and stomping, yes.
I know in that time in my life I searched out the intangible called love. But it could not be found in the places I looked; in a swinger’s club in West Palm, beneath a vivid canopy while immersed in ecstasy, in the arms of my roommate (whose girlfriend slept soundly in the other room), or in the arms of a couple. I found myself in strange relationships, some lasting for just a momentary breath. Others stuck around; stains in a white sheet, until time and my persistence washed them away.
I trod loudly, meeting all kinds of people. I remember many of them. My drug-tainted brain retains visions and the sounds of voices; those memories are sporadic at best. But, I always remember eyes.
The eyes at the dinner table reminded me of eyes that stared at me shyly when I lived in Miami. I wondered as I watched them from behind my wine glass, if those eyes recollected a girl less than twenty. But recognition did not flash, so I immersed myself warm dinner and the conversation between two couples celebrating our marriage.
I may be wrong, but I think my past came to dinner.
