Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Curves.
This meditation was different.
In so many of the others, I’m aware, looking around, and so intent on what everyone else is doing. More out of curiosity and eagerness for knowledge than fear or judgment. In this meditation, I’m the one who’s preoccupied, barely aware of what’s going on around me.
I am sitting at a table, a small fake-wood rectangle that seats four people —six with no elbow room. I am sitting toward the back of the restaurant with my back to the window. The restaurant is crowded, though there’s no one else particularly at my table.
At least, not at first.
I don’t look up for a while to notice anyone else is there. I’m sitting on the very edge of the table, even though there’s plenty of room around me. I’m pulled way inside myself, shoulders close together, head down, and I’m very focused on my food, on breaking up the eggs, potatoes, other breakfast items on my plate with a fork, breaking them into very tiny, manageable bites. There’s the comfort of sweet tea, icy on a hot day, with the kind of ice that’s slush inside the glass.
I’m alone here, but I don’t think about it. It’s not that I want to be alone, but I’m not thinking about even wanting to be alone or not being alone. I’m so busy with my own thoughts, my own plans, and thinking about the future and all the steps I have to take to manifest what I want. It takes careful planning and a lot of focus and that’s where my mind is.
I barely notice when he sits down. Him. The man who visits me in my dreams.
He sits at the end of the table, next to me, about 3 feet away, although there’s no chair between us. I’m the one who’s at the corner. He sits at a normal space.
I see him out of the periphery of my vision, but I don’t look up. I’m still focused on my work.
He sees me, and I can tell that he looks over at me. He seems to want to speak but doesn’t. He wants to be close, still takes no action.
He’s right there. Either one of us could reach out and, at arm’s length, touch the other. He’s not focused on his food.
He’s looking around at people now, and an older woman sits down across from him at her end of the table and strikes up a conversation immediately. It’s on the spirituality of manhood. They talk to each other, very animated, about how sacred manhood connects with the sacred feminine in a spiritual way.
I hear the conversation and it catches my ear. I look up but I don’t join. I simply listen, let it happen, smile to myself. I try to focus on my plans yet at the same time I’m listening to their conversation and nodding. I’m loving this, listening to what’s going on. I look up every now and then.
The man sits beside me, unaware that I’m looking up at him unless he sees me out of the periphery of his vision. He’s dressed in light slacks and a rust or light burgundy, long-sleeved shirt which is rolled up to his elbows. His hair is neat but trendy, and there’s a sheen of professionalism to him. Something fresh, something new and shiny. And very sexy.
As he leans into the table and talks to the older woman, his hands are wild with animation and occasion- ally a forkful of food. His passion makes me smile.
The woman across from him talks with equal enthusiasm, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her before. She reminds me of someone. She’s in her 60s, probably early60s, with wild gray hair, sort of longish on her shoulders and very curly but not in a beauty salon type way. She’s not coiffed or pristine or faithfully symmetrical. What comes to mind is “good country woman.”
She’s verbally intelligent, and I see this spark in her eyes when she glances up at me. She’s not competing for him. She’s not trying to win him over in any sort of way. She’s teaching him something. She wants me to know this. The knowledge she gives him is important and he, from the tone of his voice, is an excellent student.
Even though there’s no lull in conversation, I feel him sensing my presence but he doesn’t look up at me or look over at me.
I know that he has been watching me for a while now. He knew that I would be at this restaurant. He knows that I come here on a regular basis, even though “here” is not a restaurant that I know in the physical.
There’s a feeling to it that is familiar, though. Some- thing about it reminds me of Mr. Beans’ coffee shop in Merchant’s Walk in Bluewater Bay, even though the coffee shop has been gone for a year and gone are my weekly visits there with this friend or that friend for lunch.
There’s something, too, that reminds me of a family-style restaurant in a tiny town on the river where the girls and I stopped for a buffet lunch on the way to Daytona Beach last May. This is not an upscale place, but the food is good and the company is excellent.
He knew I would be here today and at exactly which table I’d be sitting. He chose to sit close by. For the moment, this is as close as we get, both of us very aware of the other, neither of us saying anything to the other, and the people around us aware that we are aware of each other and acknowledging it with nothing more than a sparkle in their eyes.
He’s so close. But he is not yet ready. He is not ignoring me this time or angry or sad. He’s just trying to figure out the right moment to turn and say hello and how to do it.
I’m not sure if he’s noticed, but I’m not unhappy to have him sitting next to me and I haven’t turned away and left.
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