To escape another Friday of digital desk-based drudgery, I jumped in the car and headed West towards the ocean just after 8am. There was no plan and no particular destination, just a soul-need to be surrounded by the bounty of Nature. I had my secretary hold the calls and postpone the meetings. I was free.
I drove up and over the small hill that separates my small town in West Marin County from the coast, at which point things get very rural – horse farms, cattle ranches, and miles of open space. The hillsides blazed a palette of exquisite shades of green, and fog hung like damp gauze atop some distant stands of pine. With every mile, my breath grew deeper and the inner static quieted. I have always loved driving through Nature because it meditatively blends movement and stillness, and the quality of alertness with the act of receiving beauty.
As I turned onto an even smaller two-lane road and wound my way through miles of mature Redwood forest next to a swollen spring stream, I recalled Thoreau said, “We need the tonic of wildness.”
About an hour later, deeply restored, I pulled into the small town of Point Reyes for breakfast. I walked into the only café and noticed a group of four older folks – a very old man and three women. They were just ahead of me waiting for a table at the hostess desk. For some reason, the man stood out – there was a sweet, aged fragility about him that caught my attention.
Just then, he turned and our eyes met; a moment both beautiful and strange. The past suddenly flooded the present, and the visceral wash of memories transported me back 50 years to a time that almost felt like another life. I know this man.
Minutes later I was seated at a table not far from theirs, and spent my entire breakfast lost in a kind of bittersweet reverie. Cascades of memories from early childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area turned inside of me. Like misty apparitions from my past, people and places I’d not thought of in decades appeared. I even thought I caught a whiff of Mustard weed – perhaps some cellular kind of aromatic memory from summers spent running and rolling in those blessed orchards. But beyond all that content, I was present to something more substantial, something upon which all of that personal history rested: which was the experience of belonging, the felt-sense of home-ness.
As I slowly picked at my eggs and hash browns, I felt the power of the past – kind and cruel – and its capacity to shape the entire arc of a life. How amazing that an accidental meeting could activate such a volcano of memory that both touched and unsettled me. Touched because those childhood days were a precious chapter defined by love and belonging; but unsettled because they are now gone, their memory highlighting the poignant passing of time and the bittersweet recognition that love and loss move together. Whether we like it or not, the great river of life moves on without consulting us.
While I’m sitting there lost in self-therapy, I’m formulating my plan to approach their table and (re)introduce myself. Clearly, it was now or never – I would never see this man again. I finish breakfast, pay the bill, and get up and walk to their table. Politely getting their attention, I apologize for interrupting their breakfast.
Four friendly faces turn toward me and, extending my hand, I look at the older man and ask, “Excuse me, are you Bob Cuenin?”
His face, one that had surely earned its fragile sweetness through decades of good living, beams and he says, “Well, yes I am.”
“You probably don’t remember me, but you were my dentist over FIFTY YEARS ago! I’m Gyani Richards, one of Joe and Betty’s boys.” He lights up, slightly squirms in his chair, and looks quickly at his companions as if to say, “Is this possible?!”
We shared short recollections and nostalgia from the good ol’ days: family gatherings, social events with my parents (“Joe and Betts”), and various names that I didn’t remember. He told me that after he retired, he and Ginnie (his wife of like 70 years!) owned a B&B in Inverness for 25 years, and now they live in a local retirement home.
After a few minutes, our heartful conversation slowed to a natural pause and, before excusing myself, I offered my hand to the gentle elder to say goodbye. For a few moments I held his soft, weathered hand, and savored the precious comingling of our past and present. Fleetingly, two whole and distinct worlds, separated by space and time, touched.
In the presence of a mysterious intimacy, I was somewhat lost for words. “Thank you, thank you. So great to see you again,” I said. Then I turned and walked away.
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