Still Sundays

October 24th.

Symphony of connections that last and meetings that may not happen again.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Compared to most New York City slickers I walk slow. I have been told this on numerous occasions by friends and it is intentional. Others skip split seconds with their foot steps without noticing the rhythm between the sky and earth, beyond gravity, in which we float. I don’t understand the rush to nowhere.

Yet, when walking next to those who are visiting me from outside the City I still move pretty fast.

Walking around the City last night with my mother I noticed I need to walk even slower. Not because my mother would appreciate it but I would.

Imagine…

even slower…

Photograph courtesy of Ed Yourdon.

I was in Nashville, Tennessee all of last week. Yesterday my mother and I returned to New York City via a short lay over in Charlotte, North Carolina. Tomorrow evening we are headed to explore Prague, Vienna and surrounding places for eleven days. My mother had some time off and my father couldn’t accompany her for this trip. I have the most flexible schedule compared to the rest of the siblings at this point in our lives, so it seemed most natural for me to join her.

While walking from one end of Charlotte airport to the opposite end to our boarding gate, I couldn’t help but notice the people. Everyone knows airports are the quintessential petri dish for the scientific and not-so-scientific study of  human  interactions and stories.

Words by Willa Cather came to mind:

“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”

What is this human story that commands retelling? Again and again.

We have been at the tip of the beginning of our evolution for centuries. We are slow learners. We need one another. Desperately. And there is no shame in that need.

Last week and the week prior I had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with quite a few people (approximately 6 to 8?) who I hadn’t met before. The Universe is a musician and sometimes I dance into a beat that is more social than other months. I used to be the prima ballerina in the social ballet of Life but writing and art often demand a solitude that isn’t lonely but definitely secluded on occasions. I am not sure how many of these people I will meet again. It was a pleasure to spend time with them and I cherished the interactions instantly. But life keeps going on and on and on and many intentions don’t manifest into another meeting.

My mother says it takes a lot of energy to keep a relationship—any relationship—going. And often it is not a reflection of either parties’ desire to communicate or spend time but there is only so much time. So much time. So little time.

I used to work in a courthouse. Far far beneath the stacks of office floors where cold fluorescent light was a piss poor excuse for natural light that we could very much see but never feel through the polished clear, airtight windows, was a basement without any windows. Here there was no sunlight which mocked us as we lumbered through the day till it was time to go home. This basement had a small cafeteria which served  refreshments—mainly coffee—and some days soups and sandwiches were available during lunch and hot roll with butter in the mornings.

Most attorneys came down to the basement cafeteria only if they had to and never to be seen there during lunch. Lawyers “go out” for lunch. Even if alone. Even if to eat food that doesn’t taste good. As long as it is “out.” Somewhere. Anywhere. Out. Away.

Some days I would come here to talk to Bert. She worked behind the counter and managed the small kitchen. I don’t think her name is Bert. I think I just called her Bert and she enjoyed it. Honestly, I can’t recall if that is what I even called her. She was a very short, 60 year old woman with extremely short, dark black hair. Others thought she was sweet but unsophisticated. The kind of “unsophisticated that is acceptable because she is from the country and that is how they are.” I thought she was humorous and one of the very few genuine—and content—people I knew in the courthouse.

When I left that job in July of 2009 she was the only person I told what I was really up to. No sugarcoating my very uncertain reality. I knew only one thing with certainty: I had to write and everything else would have to work around that. I made up ‘work around’ as I went along.  Some I willed into existence. I left for South Africa. Some I surrendered to Universe. I returned from South Africa.  Some I merely imagined and it became a tangible reality. This website was launched in July of 2009—this trial of words, writings and fragments—has taken a life of its own and I am only beginning to understand the only verdict that matters is mine. That being said, I don’t own the stories. They are free to torpedo around the stratosphere and I am just watching something much bigger than me unfold. I remain grounded and aligned with one intention: i.w.r.i.t.e.

I took Bert’s address (I still have it somewhere) to send her at least one postcard from my cross-country road trip from New York City to California with my mother last July and then one from South Africa. I never did. I used to write hand-written letters to many, many people when I was much, much younger, strangers I had met once and others I considered close friends. I don’t know why I did, but I did. I don’t think it was in the hopes to keep in touch per se. It was just how I was.

I got a card from a friend in South Africa yesterday. She is not very good at email and phone calls are expensive unless you are in the elite business sector. She would always tell me, “Annie, not everyone is as good as you when it comes to keeping in touch. It doesn’t mean they don’t think about you.” Well, somewhere along the road, I too became everyone since I began writing seriously. Not everyone writes seriously, even if they love to write. I am everyone; I am not everyone.

Her card didn’t say but one sentence: “I really miss you.”

I am leaving for Prague and then Vienna. I am sure I will meet many new people along the way. I will send Bert a card. All meetings are not equal. Some you remember a lifetime even if you never meet that person again.

It’s a beautiful Still Sunday and my mother is here to enjoy it with me.

I am blessed for many reasons but mostly because I have somehow always had the insight to know what to hold on to and what to let go and continue to experience each moment as if for the first time.

I inherited that from my mother? Is it an adaptation for survival? I learned that from my mother?

I know I am grateful.

Stillness to be in the moment, no matter what it holds without holding onto it.

It’s not easy when there is intuition overload.

But we know. Memories  (the past) and imagination ( the future) take us away from what we know in the now. And that is plenty to know.

~a.q.s.

This Still Sunday is dedicated to Nina. Words have a way of directing our lives. I had no idea then I would actually go to Vienna and so soon.

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