The sun is bright and thin. A winter sun. The sky is chalky at the edges, but the foothills seem close. Like you could touch them. Like when you look through binoculars and drop the moon into your open palm.
“It’s a fine day” says the mustached man with the off-leash Dalmatian, and I agree. I haven’t eaten in two days and my mind is running slow. It’s been a hell of a time, and it’s the first time in a week that I can see clearly.
I’ve come this way many times before, but today the houses seem individuated. Each one a home, a habitation, a place where people live out their little dramas. Then again, so many parcels of real-estate. So many walls: walls to keep out, walls to keep in. It’s all in how you look. Today, I notice the plant growing from the Icelandic wood and earthenware vase on the veranda. It’s in very good taste.
I reach the diner and the girl working the shift seats me at a table in the far corner, next to the back entrance. From here, I can survey the whole establishment. It’s the best seat in the house and always open for me when I come, even on crowded days. I’ve become superstitious about it. I order a bowl of oatmeal and a coffee to end my fast. It’s an odd choice for noon on a Friday, but the waitress takes my order without questions and I’m left with space to think.
What’s that old saying? To pull yourself up by your bootstraps. In 21st century fashion we’ve shortened it to “bootstrapping.” The grifters on Instagram have made a midsized industry out of the concept.
The coffee tastes salty and sweet, like chocolate and coconut. Apparently a normal side-effect of hunger. It’s the best diner coffee I’ve ever had. I sip it slowly.
In life, no one ever bootstrapped anything. That’s the real point of the metaphor. You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Not even if you pull very hard. You need something to push up against.
I suppose that’s what I’ve been feeling, now that it comes down to it. It’s hard work, fighting yourself. It’s the kind of fight no one has ever won. I’m tired of second guessing. Tired of explaining. You can’t please everyone, it’s true. But what about when everyone is in your head? It’s a hell of a place in there, with so many voices.
That’s why I needed you to still be here. It wasn’t about what you said or didn’t say. It wasn’t even about what you did. It had everything to do with the voices. I needed a voice on the outside. I needed something that wouldn’t change its shape. Something that could bear my weight and let me go and, for no reason but love, catch me if I fall.
The voices said, it’s not fair to ask for that. Who are you to want a thing only because you want it? Who are you to love a thing, only because you found the love already inside you? Only because it surprised you and caught you off guard? Who are you to offer only yourself when they asked for answers? Who are you to disappoint them?
You also knew this. You knew I couldn’t be what you needed me to be. And, you knew you couldn’t be what I needed. But you had room for disappointment, mine as well as yours. You stayed, and you remembered what is so often forgotten. You remembered when to stand aside. Because the earth is here. Is always here. Waiting.
You said “look, this was already your place. Look at the dry and tufted ground under your feet. This earth is yours. You belong to it.” You accepted the privilege and the heartbreak of being a loving witness.
Because, sometimes, one needs a friend.
And from where I stood there, I could see so much sky.