Time Warp

I’ve been going through my photo library lately. I got a free Flickr account, and have been going through my iPhoto, naming images, fixing erroneous dates, and uploading particular favorites.

I’ve been focusing largely on pictures taken from the 2004 Europe vacation, when I spent a month in the U.K. and France with Oliver, Elyse, Angela, Alexis, and Elizabeth. I took a lot of pictures, and Angela took enough, that I look like a slacker in comparison. She’s an excellent photographer, and has a camera that suits her skills. (I went out and bought a new camera after that trip, amazed at how we could take shots of the exact same thing, but hers look brighter and sharper by a very noticeable degree.

And so, my mind has been very much with these five people as I look at pictures and pick particular ones to share with the wider world.

I don’t dwell much on the past, but I marveled that it had been two years since the trip. Two years, in which so much had happened. And yet, we had done so little as a group in those two years. Each of us has been following our passions and checking in with each other when possible, but infrequently enough that each gathering feels like an “event” unto itself.

I went to go and see one of the RadioStar guest artists, Julie Kurtz, in “Comedy of Errors” in San Leandro on Saturday. After the show, I was approached by another member of the audience. “I think we did a show together”, she said. She didn’t initially look familiar, but then she mentioned the name of the Neil Simon show that marked my return to theatre when I came back to California. “Leslie?” I replied. I hadn’t seen her in a good six or seven years, and to say that it blew my mind would be an understatement. We talked for a bit, and I gave her a card for the upcoming show. It felt like nothing so much as a brush with my past.

Afterwards, Julie and I got a drink and some food and got into a lengthy conversation about life, art, and faith issues. Julie is a Christian, which is a lonely thing to be in the San Francsico theatre scene. I was amazed at my own mind as I pulled thoughts and observations and historical details from my mind that had no relevance to my ongoing existence, and surely bored her castmates terribly. It many ways, it felt like I was tapping into an old version of myself, something that had been largely overwritten, but still remained under the existing code.

The conversation was engaging enough that I completely missed getting to Berkeley to catch a ride with Suraya to watch her production of “Comedy of Errors”, which I will now watch on Friday. I felt terrible about it, but before Julie and her “Antipholus” were able to drag me off to watch “Merchant of Venice”, I got a phone call from Alexis, who was in the area and interested in some time together.

So a mistake on my part allowed me to spend time with someone I see entirely too infrequently. We walked the lake and talked while I noticed, and not for the first time, the inexpressible beauty of this place I live in. We walked among the feral cats and the wild geese that live around the lake. The water reflected the moon, and the strings of lights that rim the shore year-round. I don’t walk the lake enough, I thought. We so often go elsewhere, and forget to look at the beauty right in our own backyards.

I got a call from Eric Rath as well, letting me know that Angela was in the hospital. He was very good to let me know immediately that she was fine, but was wondering if I wanted to go and visit her the next day. I most definitely did, so we arranged to meet up the next morning. The time came, and Eric wasn’t ready to go, so I took my houseguest out to brunch. Since my cell phone had the ringer off, I managed to miss his return call at noon, and we didn’t actually leave until well after 2:30 to head out to Concord to see her.

Now, I generally only go to the East Bay to see Angela, and it’s always a somewhat odd experience for me. I lived in Pleasant Hill from the age of five to nineteen, and going back there always feels like playing in my childhood sandbox. Part of me has always had a discomfort around the idea of coming across someone who knew and remembered me from my highly religious period. I consider myself quite the heretic now a days, and while I no longer follow the tenets of Evangelical Christianity, I have no real desire to enter into confrontation with people who I have loved who would be deeply saddened and disappointed by my current direction in life.

But here I came with Eric, into the suburban womb that I had once dwelt so comfortably in. Angela was staying in the Concord campus of John Muir Hospital, and I didn’t put two and two together until we pulled into the parking lot. The last time I had been here, was when my Dad had suffered one of the most significant heart attacks before the one that took his life. A wash of emotion hit me, and I felt a bit shaken as we pulled in and walked up to the hospital. The waiting room seemed populated with the shades of my mother and brother, waiting nervously for news of my father’s surgery. We walked quickly through them, however, and headed up to Angela’s room.

As we visited Angela, I thought of Alexis, and all of our shared time together, and how odd it was that Jesus would have admonished us to visit the sick, as if it where a thing that needed urging. To be with those we love in times of adversity seems like something that needs not be encouraged, although I suppose the truly saintly are those who would make it their practice to visit those who lack a supportive community.

But what truly blew my mind was our exit from the hospital. As we emerged from the elevators and turned towards the exit, I saw a face I have not seen for a good fifteen years. As I turned the corner, across the waiting area, and the reception area, in almost silhouette was one of my dear high school friends… and I could not remember her last name. Even from that considerable distance, I recognized her face immediately. “God, is that Kris?” I thought. As we prepared to pass each other, I called out her name and she looked at me, blinking once or twice before the voice and face registered. “Dan?”

The last place you want to run into an old friend is in the lobby of a hospital. On a beach in Fiji, perhaps, or the party of a friend who you never knew was mutual… but in a hospital waiting room? She was there for her own crisis, and we passed a few surprised pleasantries before Eric and I exited and she and her fiancée entered.

Still, as I got in the car and Eric took us back to Oakland, I found myself drowning in memories. Two years ago with Angela and Alexis, dear friends undergoing very different trials, but who I had been allowed to spend time with. Five years ago, with my father’s surgery. Seven years ago with Leslie, who was present at the beginnings of my own artistic rebirth. And finally fifteen years ago, with someone who embodied my entire high school experience.

Eric dropped me off and I got on BART. It was time for RadioStar’s recording session. The present demanded my attention.