PANAMANIAN DINER From my chest, alone in the steam room yesterday, on the wet, iridescent bench, sprung a fountain of smooth sadness, all bubbling and blue. In the blind air, I tried to feel around for what it was or give it a name, like this is the hurt from my mother’s request to stop shimmering or the look he gave me, even when he was supposed to be in love with someone else. But this was a new kind of sadness, effervescent and pure. And it had no name. When it went away seconds later I thought, well that’s that, just one of those unexplained releases. Until it came back again, unexpectedly, that afternoon, while having a pineapple juice with my friend in the Panamanian diner. I told her about it, how I could almost savor its undiluted-ness, how sometimes I see how we are all just ants. We talked about the first time we each realized that there is no meaning. How there are pockets of life, whole worlds in each human being sitting next to us that we will never even know. How we are the bringers of meaning and light. I never found a name for this wellspring of melancholy that has been spurting forth from my heart at random intervals since, but I notice how my heart can feel absolutely demolished and elated all at once, when I sit at this counter and watch the men make sandwiches so skillfully, as if this is what they’ve been waiting to do all of their lives. © Lisa Fabrega
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 05:18:03 +0000
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