Today is the only Friday the thirteenth in 2016. Since the high was forecast to be at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit, I thought it would be fun to wear my new sparrow shirt. It's a white, short-sleeve button down with a navy print of small sparrows all over it. From afar they may look like big stars.
According to whats-your-sign.com, life is symbolic and we're to start interpreting. The site lists out a summary of symbolic meanings for this small bird:
- Joy
- Inclusion
- Creativity
- Simplicity
- Protection
- Community
- Productivity
- Friendliness
As of late, the greatest feeling I've had is one of nostalgia. Since early last weekend I've been thinking about people from my life around mid to late high school in Texas and Washington.
Had a regular follow up with my Lyme literate natural doctor (LLND), and I mentioned my feelings and deep sense of nostalgia as of late. She said this may likely be on account of me being in a healing crisis. Her concerns today related to my struggle with balance, or rather the area of my brain that controls balance, as well as my heart. She referred me to a Lyme literate cardiologist, who I may have to wait at least four to five months to get into see.
On my way into my LLND's office today, I bumped into a couple folks I met at my Lyme group a few months ago. The wife is the patient, and she's been severely struggling. My LLND mentioned she's very sick in an indicative way as though I am much less sick than she is. I suppose I take some comfort in that, sort of. The other part of me holds much compassion for my comrade of complex infectious diseases. The struggle is real; deeply injuring body, mind and spirit.
After my follow up visit I needed to have blood drawn, which I had forgotten to do earlier in the week (Lyme brain), which meant having to go to First Hill on my way home from Sand Point. The most expeditious route to avoid a traffic-choked Interstate 5 is to take Roosevelt to Roanoke to Boylston. This route would take me along the edge of the Eastlake neighborhood.
As I recalled from earlier this week, my office mate just listed a very special condominium unit in Eastlake. Special not because it's the latest and greatest carbon-neutral architectural marvel of modern design. On the contrary, the building is actually pretty dated, constructed in '66. It's called the
Maison D'Or, a very ornate sounding name for a fashionless, mid-century condo building.
To me this isn't just another concrete honeycomb of dwellings amid a hodgepodge of non-conforming architectural styles that make up the peculiar patchwork neighborhood assortments comprising Seattle. This was a place where I first ventured into my adulthood and savored my first sips of careless freedom.
My high school friend Anna's dad Paulo owned this condo back in '92. It's a top floor 2 bed/2 bath corner unit with vaulted ceilings and an actual wood-burning fireplace (a rare carbon-abundant feature for today). I mean, what are the chances out of 16,000+ residential brokers in the Puget Sound area that my office mate would be the one to list this place. That's at the very least just a little synchronistic.
I met Anna through our mutual friend Megan, who I met through our mutual friend Sam, who I met through my friend Mitch, who I met through his sister Michelle, who I met in fifth grade. And so our degrees of separation go. Anna was fun, a lot of fun, trouble kind of fun. Earlier today I gave the following description of her to my BFF via text:
"Shit talkin', softball playin', Amazonian princess."
To which she replied:
"You love explosive powerful woman. It's because you are one."
Hmmm ...
Anna's dad Paulo was slightly enigmatic. He's Brazilian, so he has a foreign mystique, which is further punctuated by his Latin flair. You know, he has a certain jeux ne se qua. At the same time he was somewhat soft spoken and reserved, always the calmest person in the room. Then again, he was also at times a little touchy-feely. Perhaps it was a cultural thing? Even so, and even though I was quite closeted during the time we were acquainted, I thought perhaps he may also be attracted to the male of our species. As they say, it takes one to know one.
As I recall Paulo worked for a bank and his work required frequent travel. So when the cat was away, Anna, Megan and I had his condo all to ourselves to play. We mostly just hung out, made food, drank, smoked, made each other laugh, played games; typical teen stuff.
It was strange going there today. I mean, I've passed by the building on a number of occasions between then and now. Actually having the intention to visit someone's old home really brought some things to the surface for me. Just remembering how we'd parallel park on East Lynn Street, the antequated front door call box, the cranky old lady who loved to complain about how noisy we were and I one day scared the living shit out of.
In my defense (not really sure there is one) that incident was totally by mistake. I'm not evil; just at times (especially as a teen), you know, dumb. Anna, Megan and I, like most silly adolescents, would occasionally prank each other. It's a show of affection among friends. Anyway, I don't quite remember all the circumstances other than I was hiding around a dark corner outside the basement parking garage, thinking Megan and Anna were unexpectedly coming my way. I patiently held out for the perfect moment to leap out from the shadows with a loud roar! Oh I got the reaction I wanted alright, and then some, just not from the right people.
"You could have given me a heart attack!" the cranky old lady shouted. "I should call the police and file charges for harassment."
In the background I heard Anna and Megan laughing their fool heads off. After I stumbled all over myself with apologies and the cranky old lady shuffled away, I found the two of them convulsing with laughter, Anna in tears.
"Oh. My. God. Bradley!!" she exclaimed. "That was some mutherfuckin' funny ass shit, but we are SO dead! She's going to tell my father and who knows what else she'll do. But whatever, that bitch totally had it comin'."
Anna had a point. Even so, I felt really bad about that particular incident. The rest of the cranky old lady's previous complaints about us though were pretty lame. Yeah, we drank under age. Who doesn't? Yeah, we were a little rowdy late at night. Our rowdy wasn't fighting or screaming; it was joyful banter and laughter. We were kids, and we certainly weren't all that bad. Naughty sometimes, like when we aided and abetted a friend swiping a half-rack of beer from an East Lake Sammamish Parkway mini mart. That wasn't cool, except being the get-away driver was kind of a thrill. Still, we were no ruthless criminals. We just liked being young, carefree and, of course, to party.
Pulling the keys from the keybox, two appeared to be originals, one of them stamped "Do Not Duplicate."
Suddenly I'm thinking about these keys having been in Paulo's and Anna's hands countless times without them giving a thought to possessing them. I think quite fondly on these objects now, rather artifacts that are a sacred link to another life I once held so dear. It was a similar, sentimental feeling as though you're holding a cherished memento of someone who has passed onto the next world. Yet they're still alive, at least I think they are. Maybe not?
The stark, minimal lobby looked exactly the same except for the brand-new-looking, modern traffic control carpet. The elevator is also a time capsule of dark, faux-wood-paneled walls framed by metal. The elevator controls are far from minimal, small circular buttons that protrude and depress in quite dramatically, like antique light switches. When the elevator reached the top/fourth floor much sooner than expected I remembered the lobby entrance is actually on floor two.
The elevator door slid open and there it was, the door to unit 401, right where I had left it some 23 years ago.
The door still had its original mid-century hardware. The brass knob sporting a simple ribbed design, which had at one point been painted white except the paint had over time been worn off the tops of the ridges. I remember as a late teen thinking of the design both as retro and international. Today it just looks a little dated. Yet I like it if only for the familiarity it now represents.
Standing at the front door to an empty tomb is much different than returning to visit a long, lost friend at their home. Sure there's some degree of anticipation, albeit quite faint and nothing that stirs the soul like wondering how you'll be received by an actual human being, one you once had much in common with and haven't seen for years vs. being confronted by a random blur of memories aroused by sights and smells.
I slid the key into the hole and turned the knob. Ah, yes, I vaguely remember the feeling of this old hardware turning in my hand. As I walked in, one of the first things I noticed were the ceilings being taller than I remembered, perhaps appearing loftier on account of my ever so humble return.
You would think I were an old man, and with all the meds I'm taking I often do feel like one. I mentioned to my counselor the other day how awful it must feel, physically, to be really old and worn down. She told me a real life anecdote. I guess a younger man asked a 90 year old man how he was feeling. The 90 year old man said, "Well, if I were your age I'd be calling an ambulance." Though the elder man responded with humor, he also meant what he said. He physically suffers and yet it's his normal and the best he can expect to feel at his age.
Today when I mentioned to my LLND I feel like an old man taking all these various meds, she set me straight. "That's an internal conversation you'll want to stop as soon as possible," she said. "Instead, the conversation is 'I'm so grateful there are things I can take to feel better and to heal.'" She admitted she can say such things to me because I'll understand where she's coming from.
I definitely get what my LLND is saying, and I used to naturally live from a place of gratitude. I once enjoyed life, fully, squeezing out each precious drop. I think I see why this healing crisis has me so nostalgic. It may be my body, mind and spirit's way of reminding me who I've always known myself to be, that happy-go-lucky person with a light heart and quick wit, he still exists inside me somewhere, even if just in my fond boyish memories.
One thing I loved most about Paulo's place, other than the company kept there; the magnificent view.
Top floor corner with a panorama of a growing skyline to one side; water and hills and mountains all round, oh my! All this in one of the city's quietest, close-in enclaves.
As I walked in I was immediately drawn to the balcony. What a spectacular, sunny day it was to take in the view. I can't tell you how many late nights Anna, Megan and I spent sitting out there, drinking and smoking. Many a night we watched the renown Space Needle turn out its lights (around 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. if memory serves). I took a couple shots with my phone to capture what's been buried deep in my mind's eye since all those years ago.
Looking north to Gas Works Park and the Wallingford neighborhood, I'm reminded of when you could actually climb up onto the colossal defunct industrial machinery which landmarked the park. Sunbathing at the water's edge with Anna and her then boyfriend Andy, who looked like a hunkier Morrissey (and I'm pretty sure he was super into The Smiths, too). Never did we feel more bourgeois than when we were invited to Sunday brunch at Paulo's girlfriend Mary's Wallingford home. Mary, incidentally, is Andy's godmother and the person who introduced him to Anna. There was quite a bit of drama around that, namely because Anna was at times a naughty, and fun, influence.
Mary lived in the second floor unit of her charming Craftsman-turned-duplex. Her brunches were amazing. She'd have about 15 to 20 gathered on her south-facing deck, which offered jaw-dropping panoramic views of Lake Union, backdropped by the Seattle skyline. She was a whiz at homemade hollandaise sauce, and would fly in fresh-caught lobster from Maine. Of course she'd have bottles of chilled champagne, and I'm pretty sure that's where I enjoyed my first-ever mimosa.
As I walked back inside from the balcony, the sixties-modern stone fireplace, which has since been painted, confronted me.
In most cases I prefer raw stone, even and especially if it has a nice patina. Suddenly in my mind's eye I'm sitting back on the concrete fireplace ledge again with a lit cigarette in hand.
The living room is no longer this plain, safe yellow-beige walled sanitarium with minimal, neutral staged furnishings. Instead it looks warm, worn and well lived in with exotic hand-woven area rugs, shelves of old books and a plethora of unusual indigenous art pieces.
Despite the new hardwood floors and interior paint, the place smells eerily the same. It's a sweet, faintly-musty fragrance somewhat like old leather and tobacco. I feel like a ghost who has come back to haunt. Only I know how much wine (in many cases cheap bottles of Boone's) was poured and drags blown up the fireplace flume in this space.
I made my way into the kitchen, and suddenly I'm once more a silly youth, taste-testing the amateur combination of spices I added to our sizzling breakfast potatoes. Turns out I had luck in my choices, they taste divine. Anna and Megan are amazed as am I. We all wear smiles. We sit to breakfast at the table that morning, entering into our usual brand of banter; light and jovial.
The flashback vanishes and once again I'm middle age, worn down by disease. My lips draw in toward one another, my eyes begin to well up and I take a full breath. In this moment I'm overcome equally by a profound sense of joy and sadness.
Way back when, I lived for fun in all things; it's all I ever did without a care in the world. All those many happy days sailed on by like clouds gathering before a rain storm. And, yes, there's beauty in the rain, too; often a more somber, heavier kind of beauty.
I hastily completed my tour shortly thereafter and hurried off like a guest who overstayed their welcome. I am, after all, part legal intruder. Then I had another text exchange with my bestie to let her know of my discoveries.
She agreed what a small world it is for this residence to be so blatantly called out to me. "I wonder if the place asked you back?" she wrote. "Maybe it's time to reconnect?"
Maybe. I saw Megan's mom Debbie a couple Dia de los Muertoses ago. She still worked at Countryside Floral in my hometown of Issaquah. I stopped in impromptu for a pair of arrangements for my grandparents' graves.
Debbie was surprised, pleasantly it seemed, to see me. She told me Megan is a mom, and has a special needs child. Her younger brother Matt is a team leader for one of my parent company's brokerage offices on the Eastside in Bellevue. Anna is a recent divorcee "on the loose" in Arizona. She was one tough cookie.
I recall things not ending well between us and leaving those relationships in an unresolved fog when I moved to California in the summer of '93.
Something else trivial and silly dawned on me. I remember this really naughty, misogynistic song I sang a Christmas ago to my bestie's nanny in Portugese. She is Brazilian, and I learned this song from Anna's boyfriend (before Andy) Dun Dun and his bestie Penna, who also were Brazilian. I loved those guys! Super fun and spirited. I'll skip past the song for now, it's pretty dirty.
One day all five of us went up skiing. We were drinking whisky in the parking lot before the lifts opened. I'm not sure if those guys had even seen snow before. They were both pretty athletic. We all rented gear, and after about a half hour of giving them all a lesson, we were all skiing intermediate runs. The guys were doing exceptionally well. Sure they'd fall and crash here and there. They'd also get right back up and after a couple hours the falling became less and less. The weather was perfectly sunny, and we all had such a marvelous time. As I take this intermediate run at my health crisis, I wish to be as resilient as my long lost Brazilian pals.
Ah, to be young, wild and carefree. Those were indeed the good old days ...
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