It's rare for me to eat at restaurants and here I am doing it so much. I did not think MyShare would be like this. A celebration. An extravagance. But when I share, I want to offer something beautiful. I imagined picnics on park benches with strangers and invitations into tea house and bringing people off the streets. Romantic, yes, but possible. My life has changed since then. Again. And now I'm everywhere and nowhere again. I worked all spring and summer, day and night, and now fall is into winter and I haven't had any regular rent to pay for 10 months. This means a little money saved up. Feels like a lot. I'm saving for Mongolia.
Aaron shared his news with me. He and his partner are selling their house and moving to Skagit. Debt free in Skagit. And this year he moved his aging mother to Seattle. She brings in more SS than my mother and can afford her rent. He had her things shipped to Seattle and solicited friends to unpack her things and so she arrived to a decorated apartment. She was thrilled. Sounds very unlike what I did for my own mother. Alas.
When we got talking spirituality, he told me about his 10-day Vipassana meditation. Since then, he said, he sits an hour a day. That, as a practice, prepares him for his day. After the meal, we walked to Quan Yin Teahouse and ordered a pot of World Peace tea. They had to ask us to leave an hour after they closed
Aaron encouraged me to watch "A Thousand Clowns." In trying to find it that night, I inadvertently watched "Separate Tables." When the film was over, I realized it wasn't the movie I was meaning to see. I found that interesting as I'm struggling to continue my work on "The Clown" in France and Mongolia and am instead here in Seattle sharing meals.
I stayed up late. I cannot work. I cannot focus in a cluttered space, in a dirty space, in a dark or cold space. I must clean and order it before I can sit down to work in it. All I need is a corner, some free table space and a clean kitchen and bathroom. I did a fair amount of cleaning before I backed away. I gain nothing from this. At some point, when I saw I was not winning, I stopped and sat up on my computer watching a film.
There were two books next to each other on the bookshelf at the teashop. They were part of a set. One had the letter T on the spine. The other had the letters EA on the spine. They were arranged in the wrong order and instead of spelling TEA spelled EAT. The cosmic order is mixed up. I bought a bar of dark chocolate for us to share. Aaron had no difficulty receiving it. He simply said, "Thank you."
For 35 days, I have eaten in community. I have eaten nothing alone. All my meals are taken with others. Because of this, I have missed meals. I have missed breakfast most, but also dinners and lunches. There were no days when I ate nothing. I am considering continuing with this work. Why? Why not? Why? Because I have wanted to cheat? Many times I have thought, "What would a nut matter? I could just have this olive or that piece of fruit or... this whole project is silly! Who cares. And I want to eat." I have not cheated. I have wanted to. Many times there were nuts or chips or cheeses or crackers or fruits or chocolate lying around. I have smelled food cooking in restaurants, scents wafting from neighbor's houses. Mmmm. Food. The sacrament I do not freely take. Eating alone, one day, when I chose to end this work, will feel heightened and luscious and maybe even wrong.
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