the passage of time is sometimes a blur, sometimes an accumulation, sometimes sudden, so here I am, well was, having dinner last night with my mom and my brother, at a familiar place, one I actually saw open back in the day, and man… that almost hurts to say “back in the day”, when I was in college, in new brunswick, almost, no, really a different lifetime back then (different person but the same?), but then here I am, back in the same place, that was once new and fresh, the toast of the town, a home run, a hit, and now sadly seemingly on the down slope of things, and my instincts scream “how can this be?”, but honestly? how often have I been, back here, I mean except now and again, what was once an upstart revolution is now an institution, I love new and exciting places but sometimes want to hold others to their past pillars, to remain the same, nothing does, nothing can, the world changes, menus have to rotate and evolve like the world, this place once had a beautiful-bound-book like menu, practically, worth reading on it’s own, the charm, the feel in my hands, the smell, the strangeness of having the vast dessert menu up front page one, and now, just a single sheet and a qr code, I understand the why, but somehow still pine for the then, even if that holding on might contribute to the end of said…
‘a monday in a college town in the summer’, I tell myself, as if I fail to recognize the lack of parking spots as other places have filled up all around, or perhaps don’t notice that every other place I remember from those years has changed hands half a dozen times or so, no, I guess, somehow, in my wiring, I expect the comfort of certain things to just retain or remain, no, they can not, this goes against the nature of everything, of time itself, so that is how we become a relic, relying on the infrastructure of the familiar, yes, this makes us easy to digest time as time is literally passing without notice to us, but how do we maintain the balance, new and old, what is new is not always better, nor is that which is old, better is better, so better to have the taste buds sharp, eyes of a hawk, and figure out which is superior – now, in the moment, for that is the only measure of time we can savor, if only for an instant, the flavor.
the dinner- my birthday, one more than 49, some milestone, I wonder what will change, if anything, or is this just another day in the chain, or will I learn something, from this refrain.