Breakfast Alone
Jan. 27th, 2009 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingI want things to be different. I start thinking about how things could be different, and then I remember the morning I drove up to Seattle. After Steve got on his airplane back to LAX, I had a few hours before going back to the Sacramento airport to meet Beth’s flight. My parents, my mother particularly, were not comfortable with me driving from Southern California to Seattle alone, so the first part of the trip was with my ex in the passenger seat, the second half with my school-days friend who lived in Portland, Oregon.
During the time between flights, I went to a local diner and had breakfast. It was going to be breakfast alone, a rare thing for me to do. I couldn’t remember ever having had a restaurant breakfast by myself. I can’t remember if I did or didn’t, the time I ran away; I might have made good with coffee and pastry. I can’t remember much about the time I ran away. Just the part about buying that black bodysuit and plaid skirt, and the driving.
In one version of things, I had breakfast alone: an eye-opening meal of diner coffee (cream and two sugars, the way Suz used to take it and maybe still does) and a Denver omelet made with Eggbeaters. In the version I’m going to tell you about now, the one that happens when you follow a tardy rabbit of pale coloring, I started on my breakfast only to be interrupted almost immediately by a sudden guest. I didn’t see her until she slid into my booth table.
“Eat while I talk,” she directed. “You’re going to like that egg substitute.”
I drank some coffee. I knew in seconds who she was, and I couldn’t start wolfing down home fries with newly confirmed knowledge that I had lost my mind. Then I rethought that thought and decided to eat. I may have cracked at last and for good, but the omelet would be gross cold.
She looked at me. She had my face, older, and her eyes were the same ones that looked back at me in a mirror. You can’t not know yourself when she sits down with you at breakfast. “I’m not actually you,” she advised, “future you. I’m talking to you now to change that.”
She was right. The Eggbeaters made the omelet good. With enough ham and melted cheese to cover the nasty taste of eggs, I could usually be okay with a Denver, but without the dead taste of eggs messing it up, it was delicious. Too bad I had to swallow fast to speak before she did. “Wait.” I kept my voice low. “How do you know what things need to change? What the pivotal points are?”
“Think about what you’d tell your past self, and when. You know,” she answered. “You know the moments that mattered. It gets lost in history, but this is one of them.” She spread her hands across the top of the melamine table, a gesture that encompassed the room, the building, the city. “This. And now.”
Then she told me. She had a list, written out on a piece of pink paper that she took out of her coat pocket and unfolded to read.
“How is that supposed to be a better future?” I asked bleakly. “I suppose that’s supposed to strengthen my character? How am I supposed to let those things happen, knowing where their going?”
“There’s a lot of comfort in knowing already how it ends.” The smile she smiled wasn’t a happy one. It may have been a peaceful one, though. People have always asked me if I’m sad, when I’m lost in thought and not being conscious of my expression.
She passed the list across the table to me. “If you miss some of those, I think you’ll still come to the same important points. The ones I’ve underlined… I’m pretty sure that’s where I went wrong.” She studied her hands, the polished nails at the ends of her fingers. “Even if it’s not the right way, things will be different.” Her eyes locked into mine. “You know what I’m thinking.”
“You’re changing your past.” It was obvious. The me who was telling me about my future would not be the future me. She wouldn’t be, at all. I felt a cold crackle that reminded me of the edges of a rain puddle that was starting to freeze.
“I thought if I could save just one,” she murmured.
I got the allusion, but I didn’t smile at it. I reached out to make contact. It felt comfortable to put my hand into hers. I squeezed the warm fingers. “I’ve always thought so.” I’d never been good about touching people or being touched. Hard to know when it was okay. It always felt awkward.
“I thought, maybe that one could be me.”
If I had hugged her then, I don’t think I could have let her go. She left. The waitress came and refilled my coffee mug, took my plate. I checked my watch and saw that it was time to head to the airport.
I want things to be different, and then I think about how they already are. The me that came to me in the diner that morning looked tired. She was well-dressed. She wore make-up, and jewelry that I think she made, because they look like the designs I scribble or keep in my head. I wonder. I wonder what she could have told me about her life. Not every turn can be a wrong turning.
I kept the list. When I look at that creased sheet of pink paper, I can’t imagine having chosen differently on the underlined things, not even when I wanted to. More than three of them were hard times for me; at least one of them was nearly unbearable. How much does the present shape its past?
Maybe I would have missed them, if they hadn’t been pointed out.
Maybe not.
I’ve started my own list, a list of things I wouldn’t want to lose. It’s full of names, memories. At the top of the list is my own name, because I still think it will be all right if I can save just one.
Rabbit Hole Day 2009
During the time between flights, I went to a local diner and had breakfast. It was going to be breakfast alone, a rare thing for me to do. I couldn’t remember ever having had a restaurant breakfast by myself. I can’t remember if I did or didn’t, the time I ran away; I might have made good with coffee and pastry. I can’t remember much about the time I ran away. Just the part about buying that black bodysuit and plaid skirt, and the driving.
In one version of things, I had breakfast alone: an eye-opening meal of diner coffee (cream and two sugars, the way Suz used to take it and maybe still does) and a Denver omelet made with Eggbeaters. In the version I’m going to tell you about now, the one that happens when you follow a tardy rabbit of pale coloring, I started on my breakfast only to be interrupted almost immediately by a sudden guest. I didn’t see her until she slid into my booth table.
“Eat while I talk,” she directed. “You’re going to like that egg substitute.”
I drank some coffee. I knew in seconds who she was, and I couldn’t start wolfing down home fries with newly confirmed knowledge that I had lost my mind. Then I rethought that thought and decided to eat. I may have cracked at last and for good, but the omelet would be gross cold.
She looked at me. She had my face, older, and her eyes were the same ones that looked back at me in a mirror. You can’t not know yourself when she sits down with you at breakfast. “I’m not actually you,” she advised, “future you. I’m talking to you now to change that.”
She was right. The Eggbeaters made the omelet good. With enough ham and melted cheese to cover the nasty taste of eggs, I could usually be okay with a Denver, but without the dead taste of eggs messing it up, it was delicious. Too bad I had to swallow fast to speak before she did. “Wait.” I kept my voice low. “How do you know what things need to change? What the pivotal points are?”
“Think about what you’d tell your past self, and when. You know,” she answered. “You know the moments that mattered. It gets lost in history, but this is one of them.” She spread her hands across the top of the melamine table, a gesture that encompassed the room, the building, the city. “This. And now.”
Then she told me. She had a list, written out on a piece of pink paper that she took out of her coat pocket and unfolded to read.
“How is that supposed to be a better future?” I asked bleakly. “I suppose that’s supposed to strengthen my character? How am I supposed to let those things happen, knowing where their going?”
“There’s a lot of comfort in knowing already how it ends.” The smile she smiled wasn’t a happy one. It may have been a peaceful one, though. People have always asked me if I’m sad, when I’m lost in thought and not being conscious of my expression.
She passed the list across the table to me. “If you miss some of those, I think you’ll still come to the same important points. The ones I’ve underlined… I’m pretty sure that’s where I went wrong.” She studied her hands, the polished nails at the ends of her fingers. “Even if it’s not the right way, things will be different.” Her eyes locked into mine. “You know what I’m thinking.”
“You’re changing your past.” It was obvious. The me who was telling me about my future would not be the future me. She wouldn’t be, at all. I felt a cold crackle that reminded me of the edges of a rain puddle that was starting to freeze.
“I thought if I could save just one,” she murmured.
I got the allusion, but I didn’t smile at it. I reached out to make contact. It felt comfortable to put my hand into hers. I squeezed the warm fingers. “I’ve always thought so.” I’d never been good about touching people or being touched. Hard to know when it was okay. It always felt awkward.
“I thought, maybe that one could be me.”
If I had hugged her then, I don’t think I could have let her go. She left. The waitress came and refilled my coffee mug, took my plate. I checked my watch and saw that it was time to head to the airport.
I want things to be different, and then I think about how they already are. The me that came to me in the diner that morning looked tired. She was well-dressed. She wore make-up, and jewelry that I think she made, because they look like the designs I scribble or keep in my head. I wonder. I wonder what she could have told me about her life. Not every turn can be a wrong turning.
I kept the list. When I look at that creased sheet of pink paper, I can’t imagine having chosen differently on the underlined things, not even when I wanted to. More than three of them were hard times for me; at least one of them was nearly unbearable. How much does the present shape its past?
Maybe I would have missed them, if they hadn’t been pointed out.
Maybe not.
I’ve started my own list, a list of things I wouldn’t want to lose. It’s full of names, memories. At the top of the list is my own name, because I still think it will be all right if I can save just one.
Rabbit Hole Day 2009