The closest I’ll come to time travel and meeting myself 20 years ago<\/h1>\n

I recently moved. While unpacking, I found something I\u2019d written twenty years ago. I\u2019d forgotten about the essay, and about the encounter that inspired it; that is, until I reread it; then it all flooded back — like when someone shows you\u00a0 a photo of yourself taken years ago that you don\u2019t recall being taken. <\/i><\/p>\n

In this story, I was the girl in the red beret. I don’t know why I wrote it in the voice of the old man, but it\u2019s obvious that even then, twenty years ago, my elderly father\u2019s mortality was very much on my mind. When my brothers and I reunited to be with him for the final month of his life in 2007, I had no intention of writing a play, \u201cIt Is What It Is<\/a>,\u201d <\/i>inspired by that experience. But that play is also about long buried memories we rediscover when we read something written at a certain time in the past, and about how — even in our most meaningless texts — we are in a way choosing what we document in our lives every day. Which is not entirely unlike me rediscovering this essay now, twenty years after it was written. Here it is:
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

NORTH BEACH, WEDNESDAY, 1993<\/b><\/p>\n

This is the only time of the day that this street, this neighborhood, looks the way it used to. Except for the cars passing by\u2026 the cars are different. I don\u2019t notice them much. Usually, they\u2019re just in the background.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>I remember when I was young and every morning I\u2019d see the old Italian men in the neighborhood sitting here on this same bench I\u2019m sitting on now, talking to each other in Italian. I never paid much attention to them. I mean, I noticed them, as they fed the pigeons. But I guess I thought of them like I thought of the benches, the pigeons, and the statues: all part of the park itself. I thought they\u2019d be there forever and I thought I\u2019d be young forever too.<\/p>\n

I never thought I\u2019d be an old man, like a child never thinks he\u2019ll be anything but a child. But these things happen and we don\u2019t even think about it until it\u2019s long since happened. Then we realize the loss of time\u2026 at least, I do. Somehow I think that if I\u2019d thought of it then, of growing old, I could have prevented it. Like I could have taken control. Instead, no! Time took control. I stopped paying attention to it and it got the upper hand and it beat me.<\/p>\n

I noticed some young men standing on the corner as I walked past them earlier \u2013 Christ, they probably thought I hobbled past them. Which, I did. I do. I do hobble now. It felt good so to sit down on this here bench. God, how good it felt to sit. Tired after three blocks, mostly downhill. When I was the young man standing on the corner, I pitied the old men. But I never thought I could turn into one of then, any more than I thought I could turn into a bench or a pigeon or a statue.<\/p>\n

Do the young men pity me now? How can they not? They don\u2019t see I\u2019m the same as them. I once was<\/i> them, as they will one day be me.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t understand it, how I still think exactly the same as I did when I was young \u2013 yet to others, I look so different. So old<\/i>.\u00a0 They think I was always old, with nothing to do but count the days. At least that\u2019s what I<\/i> used to think of the old men when I was young. Those old men are all long dead by now.<\/p>\n

I like it here in the morning, once I sit down. It\u2019s quiet, just a few people on their way to work. There\u2019ll be a lot of people on their way to work in an hour or so, then it changes. It\u2019ll be rushed. Now, it\u2019s new; it feels new and fresh and very peaceful. And I\u2019m part of it. The sun\u2019s not out yet. I mean it\u2019s risen, but it\u2019s still so hazy and foggy, you can\u2019t even see it. Every day starts out overcast here, and I like that. But usually the sun eventually burns through. Then the people don\u2019t wear their coats and hats. I like seeing people in coats and hats. People used to always wear hats. Now they can\u2019t be bothered, only when it\u2019s cold out. But here in the early morning, they wear them, and the scene looks like it used to look years ago. The brighter the coats and hats, the better!<\/p>\n

Like this gal passing by right now. What a cutie! She\u2019s wearing a red beret, like mine (though mine\u2019s gray). She\u2019s wearing a matching red raincoat with little blond curls and big brown eyes peeking out from under the beret. Can\u2019t see much of her body under that coat, but she\u2019s not skinny \u2013 and I like that! I always liked women\u2019s bodies to look like women\u2019s bodies. I used to love big tits. Still do. I just haven\u2019t had my hands on some in too long to remember. My wife\u2019s were big. Still are. But they\u2019ve changed. When we were young, they stood up and saluted, like they were as glad to see me as I was to see them. Now they hang low, staring at the ground whenever I\u2019m around. Guess I\u2019m not such a sight anymore, either.<\/p>\n

The cutie in the red beret is still standing on the corner, so close I could poke her with my cane. The light turned green and she didn\u2019t cross; she just stood there, staring. At me. I look up and catch her eye and she looks off a little to the left, I think she\u2019s embarrassed. I give the kid a break and stop looking at her. But I can still see her and she\u2019s staring at me again, just standing there looking very sad. I\u2019m kinda enjoying all this attention. No young lady has looked at me in who-knows-how-long. But she\u2019s not looking at me the way I used to be looked at by the ladies, the way I\u2019d give one of my few remaining years to be looked at again: a look of desire, a look with sex written all over it.<\/p>\n

Instead, she looks at me sadly. She pities me, as I used to pity the old men. I bet I remind her of a grandfather. A dead grandfather. I don\u2019t want to be her dead grandfather.<\/p>\n

She looks down at her feet for a few seconds. It almost seems, for an instant, that she might come over here. But no, this time the light turns green, ad she walks away, waiting for everyone else to step off the curb first. Did you see that, Charlie<\/i>? She looked over her shoulder at me for a final glance! Ciao, Bella.<\/em><\/p>\n

I feel like I was mean to her. I could have said Hello. She was thinking, she wanted to say something to me\u2026 maybe something she didn\u2019t get to say to her dead grandfather. She was too scared. You know what? I was too scared to say anything, too.<\/p>\n

Here comes Pete now. Better move this newspaper so he\u2019ll have room to sit \u2013 Christ, he moves slower than I do. I hope I don\u2019t look like that when I walk. You go play with the other pigeons now, Charlie. Go see if you can\u00a0 get a little action with that cute little white one over there. She’s been watching you this whole time. Don’t blow this opportunity…<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The closest I’ll come to time travel and meeting myself 20 years ago I recently moved. While unpacking, I found something I\u2019d written twenty years ago. I\u2019d forgotten about the essay, and about the encounter that inspired it; that is, until I reread it; then it all flooded back — like when someone shows you\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[496,3,497],"tags":[527,529,613,51,367,7,528],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2120"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2128,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2120\/revisions\/2128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myadultland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}