"...smallest, darkest, most desolate moment."

While seated in the audience of an intimate concert this evening, waiting for the lights to dim and the MC to make herself known, I opened up my miniature Moleskine notebook—which I almost always carry with me, everywhere—to jot down some thoughts. I have a little ritual of writing in my journal when I go out on my own, so that when I’m 85 (God willing) I can publish this compendium of notes I have gathered from sitting at bars or at concerts alone, even though that sounds very sad and lonely and is not what I mean to project. Only that, being a writer, sitting alone in public places is part of my practice and is good for my eyes and my ears. And I acknowledge, too, that we can sit “alone” with the one we love, if aloneness is a skill you have both cultivated and respect in one another.

But I digress.

Before I put the notebook away, I noticed a folded receipt, stuck between the last two pages. Knowing that I sometimes write on whatever is handy, on the rare occasion that I don’t have my mini Moleskine with me, I was curious to read what it had to say, glimpsing my scratched-out handwriting and knowing these little remnants to be like delicate, intricate time capsules—a porthole into a moment past and a life gone by.

The date written on the top was almost a year ago to this day. Seeing the date and reading the opening lines, that particular moment in time came rushing back to me in an instant. I remembered, all of a sudden, the face of the bartender who had served me that night and the endearing way he had mispronounced the name of the wine I had ordered (Francisco Montand). I remember the fact that the bar was so full and bursting with people past the age of 55, and how there was this alcove off the bar with black painted walls and a little love sofa where I sat and ate my meal from a tray table they brought me. I remembered that these were the days, three months into living on this coast and almost nothing going to plan, that I had begun to fend off disillusionment with denial. I used to take myself out on dates after I’d get out of work on Fridays and sort of just wander the streets of downtown until something called out to me. I’ve met a lot of characters this way and would usually wind up with a glass or two of Francois Montand, all the better to mediate the predictable (yet not necessarily unwelcome) conversation with some curious older gentleman who wants to know what I’m writing about, sitting on my own with my old-fashioned notebook and plastic pink fountain pen. 

I do worry about myself sometimes, fielding all these changes and cultivating a herculean ability for patience. But when I look back on this last year, the sensation is akin to standing next to a wondrous oak tree where before there had been only a hole in the ground.

So much has occurred, so much has changed, and I am all the more alive because of it.

I told a dear friend not long ago that in my great desire to be elsewhere, I realized one day that I was missing out on everything, here. Like it or not, I am here, and here is really not such a bad place to be. We make up such fantasies about what we’d be doing and whom with, if only we lived somewhere else. It’s getting harder and harder for me to let go and just embrace where I am, because somewhere else is calling my name, tugging my sleeve, whispering to me on the wind. There’s a fine line between a calling and an obsession, I’ve begun to realize. But still, if I was a writer who could work remotely and thrive in a city like Tel Aviv, I would book the next plane from Tampa and say bye-oosh for now, haverim.

And yet: There’s a process. There is timing. There’s an unfolding to life and even a learning curve to living.

But, God: The performers are young and the audience is old, and after 40 years, that’s still how this city is…

Forgive me, dear reader. I seem to be losing the thread. Maybe “editor me” will find a way to patch this up in the morning, as “writer me” can only take a deep breath, then give thanks to God for bringing me this far; for filling my heart with never-ending desire; for carrying me through the fray; for meeting me on the beach when I’m flat on my back upon the surface of the ocean; for seeking me out in the faces of friends; in the fabric of my whispered prayers; and always and especially, when I can’t seem to think of anything good, even if just for the smallest, darkest, most desolate moment.