pivot

I spent the last $3.00 and change in my pocket on coffee, bagel and tip. Mike, an old hand behind the counter, tells me he's leaving town - graduated, aimless, headed for god knows where to do god knows what. Graduated. No plan except to leave here.

Mike, it hardly seems like it's been that long, I said, inwardly astonished.

It's been four years. I've watched your kids grow so much! he replied. I could have told him I've seen the same of him. That laid-back, smooth-chinned boyishness is gone. I remember his first week working the counter here when he was apologetic, and funny as he clumsily learned the ropes. His voice squeaked. Here, now, is a more self-assured, whiskered, slightly hungry looking, bohemian young man. He gives the illusion of constant motion even when standing still. He carries the energy of uncertainty. But a line has formed up behind me and there isn't time to chat. I'm a little bewildered by change, by the fluidity of people who cross paths for a time. Of the old Rao's crew, he is the last. He's a link back, an old constant from the days when there was a big table that strangers shared, from the shakey days after 9/11, from sickening mornings of painful change and moments of sublime hilarity or joy.

One trouble with sticking around a college town for more than one tour of duty is that you see ghostly and vicarious visions of yourself all the time. I was once one of these young people. The visions grow and then leave the college orbit in perplexing ways, perplexing because they aren't you, they are them, but yet this identification persists.

The other trouble is, like the sculptures by Goldsworthy, there is a transience to all beauty, all art, all life. We make art stepping the paving stones through our days. We make art by being aware of the remarkable coincidences and the brushes with people and character. In a blink of an eye, it is gone. This beauty is terrible. I want to hold it, but I cannot. Every day here, I am reminded.

So I will savor tonight. It is nearing midsummer eve and my love is coming out to meet me in this floating convocation of a small town through which so many people whirl and pivot. And we will raise our glasses to each other, to our children, to every moment we seize from the thief of time. And we will whirl and pivot together and hold the beauty - air and light - and forget fear that brings pain. My heart can have a touch of forever in her eyes and in her heart.