Weekend
Took the last flight on a Friday night caught between the last days of summer and the beginning of fall. Made a brief stop at Minneapolis and, while waiting, I got a text message from an unfamiliar number telling me it was you. You were there at the airport as I made my exit and we found our way at the parking lot looking for the rental. We drove for miles beneath the midnight sky, across the vast Bay Area, against the settling fog and the twinkling lights of distant buildings, until we passed the shadows of the mountains and the distance between houses became as wide as the longing in our hearts.
We took the BART in the morning and made our way to downtown San Francisco with only a camera and a vague impression of where we would go. We walked on streets we only saw in the movies, where the wind blew the words right out of our mouths. We laughed at our own jokes, we laughed at how lost we were, and we laughed for no reason at all, except that we were happy where we were. We stumbled on piers where giant crabs were lunch and Ghirardelli chocolates were desserts. We climbed hilly streets and rolled down the crookedest street in the world. We saw Alcatraz from a distance and imagined the ghosts that lived there, its cracked walls, ruined rooms, and the beds that were never made.
And when nighttime came we found ourselves helplessly abandoned and chilly at the Golden Gate Bridge waiting for a cab that never came. We took a bus that passed our way with no idea of where we would get off. But somehow we found ourselves running to catch the last train that would take us out of San Francisco and into the outskirts of the city.
My head on your shoulder while yours on the window, the outside world melted away in the speed and haze of the passing night. We were on a small spot on Earth moving to a place that until then I never knew existed. The prospect of a cab at the end of the long ride a remote possibility.
There was a poignancy to the image of us, alone, taking the midnight train in a foreign land. A kind of poesy that defeats the smallness in a world of seven billion. For lost as we were, we found each other. And even after we took our separate flights and resumed our separate lives, we would always have that weekend in California.
(December 2014)
We took the BART in the morning and made our way to downtown San Francisco with only a camera and a vague impression of where we would go. We walked on streets we only saw in the movies, where the wind blew the words right out of our mouths. We laughed at our own jokes, we laughed at how lost we were, and we laughed for no reason at all, except that we were happy where we were. We stumbled on piers where giant crabs were lunch and Ghirardelli chocolates were desserts. We climbed hilly streets and rolled down the crookedest street in the world. We saw Alcatraz from a distance and imagined the ghosts that lived there, its cracked walls, ruined rooms, and the beds that were never made.
My head on your shoulder while yours on the window, the outside world melted away in the speed and haze of the passing night. We were on a small spot on Earth moving to a place that until then I never knew existed. The prospect of a cab at the end of the long ride a remote possibility.
There was a poignancy to the image of us, alone, taking the midnight train in a foreign land. A kind of poesy that defeats the smallness in a world of seven billion. For lost as we were, we found each other. And even after we took our separate flights and resumed our separate lives, we would always have that weekend in California.
(December 2014)
Photo grabbed from: The Last Trip
You guys are like tangent lines and it breaks my heart just thinking that moments like the one you shared with us may never happen again.
ReplyDeletereminds me a true story i once lived. haha
ReplyDeleteI echo D and LoF. This made me run my hands through old scars. Why did you have to leave California?
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me that with love, surroundings are of no consequence.
ReplyDeleteHad to leave because I didn't live there. But we had other weekends in other states. Haha. ;-)
ReplyDelete