A letter from San francisco....T

Two thoughts came to mind tonight. There is never enough time, and time stands still.

For me the first is certainly true about my summer break that is drawing too quickly to a close and I think the second is true when you fall in love, probably when you die, certainly when you are with someone who dies and then at other, random, possibly unexplainable times that are individual for each person.

Tonight was one of those.

I had left the apartment to go up Fillmore to the local bookshop, Book Browser, with a vague intention of maybe having a coffee on the bench outside the coffee shop next door before watching the people of Friday Night stream past.

Entering a slight meditative trance as I browsed the books on the table set up outside, a changing selection set by one of the owners inside, I became unaware of the taxis and cars that cruised past, the couples strolling, some hand in hand others out together for the first time and unsure how, or if, to proceed.

Slow Man (a novel), Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar (understanding philosophy through jokes), A Writer’s San Francisco (a guided journey for the creative soul), The Bird Artist (another novel).

And then time stood still and I became piercingly aware of every detail around me. I could shift attention from book titles (all of which I will probably buy) to the smell of burnt garlic rising from the pizza house down the hill, to the shine of the toenails of the girl sitting on the bench, to the labyrinthal patterns on the wall of the coffee shop, the neon reflected in the SUVs as they turn on the stop light, the tone of a voice, someone’s gait, the number of times they had crossed the road.

But most fixedly on the earthy and incandescent music coming from the violinist standing in the doorway of the furniture shop.

He was standing back near the door, framed on one side by an ugly leather sofa, on the other by two white and chintzy armchairs. Wearing a tweed jacket and black trousers, black-rimmed glasses, clean shaved, heavy eyebrows, he could have been a professor.

Everyone was walking past unaware, un-listening and missing a moment of beauty. The girls left the bench, I sat down. It was dark, the night fresh, fed by the breeze from the ocean. The girls came back. I made room. They shared chocolate, the music played on. The woman in pink top and silver hemmed white slacks crossed the road for a third time, a family of four headed down hill. The man walking alongside his date for the first time had put on his jacket that earlier he carried on his arm; his date wobbled on her diamante encrusted heels. The man at the next table closed his book and looked around. A woman struggling with a full plastic bag climbed the hill, laughing.

The violin played on.

The man from the coffee shop, going home for the evening, recognised the girls back from a summer trip and stopped to talk, I gave him my seat on the bench and went to talk to the violinist.

Then I took my bike and swept down the hill, feeling the time rushing past, precious few Friday evenings like this left this summer.

I wish I could make it stop, there is never enough.

Time.