23 of 40

Today I didn't eat lunch until about 5pm. Almost exactly 5pm since Burma Superstar re-opens for dinner at 5 and I got there a few minutes after and the dining room was half-full. I sat alone at a square, wooden table and ordered the tea leaf salad, the samusa soup and some coconut rice. I knew I wouldn't and couldn't eat it all in one sitting and I also knew that I needed life. Life in the form of rich, tasty, special food full of flavor and warmth and depth. I wasn't escaping. I was walking outside, away from imminent death and towards sensation and mindful enjoyment of being alive. My job is hard.

I soaked in my privilege.

That I can afford to eat at a restaurant for lunch.
That I live in a place where such food can be found.
That I was eating in a beautiful room surrounded by lively, different-looking people.
That I have healthy children.
That I stumbled into a career that feeds me.
That I get a chance to sit and eat alone.

Many other things. When I left the hospital I brought with me a thin journal with a green, textured-paper cover and a folded-up New York magazine, along with two cellphones work and personal. I didn't know how I would want to occupy my mind during my meal--I mostly sat there and soaked in the space, tasted the food, thought about the day. Then I was thinking too much and I opened up the magazine to give my mind and myself a break.

I finished what I was going to eat and looked up at the two black women getting ready to get settled at the counter next to me. Stunning adult daughter solicitously asking her mom if she would be ok sitting at the counter. I was eavesdropping, looking their way. The daughter smiled at me and said hello.

I'm about to pay my check, I said. You can have this table.

They said yes and the mom got down off her stool and came to sit across from me as I waited for my check and my to-go boxes.  She and I talked--about where we lived, the restaurant, what I did for a living. She asked me if I were a vegetarian, I'm guessing based on my order. Which made me think her daughter was probably a vegetarian.

Her daughter had gone to talk to someone else in the restaurant and then came back to us. The mom asked me what I was doing for the holidays, which gave me pause and then made me think we were talking about Labor Day. I said I was working today and tomorrow and then I'd be with my family Monday. And you?

Just staying home, she said.

A meal away from my kids feels like a holiday sometimes, I said.

Which led us to talk about kids, and my passel of children, which brought the usual exclamations of joy and confusion. We smiled and commiserated and looked at photos. The daughter practically did a laying on of hands in sympathy for me, which I appreciated and which told me she was a mother herself. It was a lovely pre/post meal exchange.

I walked out, onto the streets of Oakland, feeling refreshed and grateful and privileged.

That I have the chance to

talk to
learn from
laugh with

other people in the world.