seating chart

In October of 2006, while suffering the worst of broken hearts I'd ever had the pain of enduring, I took a trip to London. I needed a respite from the places where we'd been. The physical reminders often led to the recollection of the metaphorical ones. Where were we? Oh, in the courtyard of the Getty Center. But really where we were was in love. When you're sad the good memories, the pockets of time when love was pristinely inspiring and wholly encompassing, become the worst memories. The ones that make you run. I ran away from the city that reeked of that boy.

On the plane, I sat next to a man with a lovely voice. A listening voice, I called it. He wore a dress shirt and a red tie. I noticed his Esquire magazine tucked into his seat pocket and when I innocently asked him about an article in it, what began was an eight-hour conversation that carried us over the fruited planes and the Atlantic ocean. The broken heart tumbled from my lips. He consoled me with his own tale of great woe. About his incredible chance meeting, courtship of, marriage to and ultimately divorce from a woman he met while in search of an art museum in Budapest. I listened for hours. We spoke of his family and of mine. We spoke of the future. We spoke of sustaining the hope of love. We spoke of New York where he had once lived. After London and Paris, I'm headed to New York, I told him. A place where I've always wanted to live, I said. He encouraged me to follow my dream. I nodded in agreement but deep down inside, in the same place where the truest reasons for my break-up hid, I admitted to myself that I was chickenshit. I looked at this man who seemed to believe that I would actually move to New York and felt like I was merely appeasing him. Little did I know.

We parted ways at Heathrow. He wished me luck. I wrote down his story in my travel journal and a year later when I decided to move, I thought of him. I thought about the timbre of his voice, of his calm, dare I say suave demeanor, of his inability to stop believing that love would find him again. I wished that I could tell him that I was moving to New York afterall. An act that seemed so obvious to him yet that eluded me for so long.

I've been away for almost two months but I'm back in L.A. for a week. I'm celebrating Easter which last year, ended a period of grave depression for me. It was a Lent I will never forget. As I planned my week of sunshine and long hugs with the people I've missed, I set aside tonight for a particular person who ended up not being available. In lieu of that dinner, I went out with my friend Kristen. We had originally planned on going to Hugo's on Riverside but then thought a drive was in order so we headed to West Hollywood where I thought Lucques would be a better option. Suzanne Goin can really cook.

As we were seated, we both became sympathetically aware of the couple next to us on a first date. Kristen had a view of the woman and I faced the man. He spoke to her about something inane and awkward like any real first date requires. Their questions to each other were innocuous and forcibly innocent. He seemed sweet. He seemed like he was trying to drag a large stone to the surface of a deep, uncertain ocean. It was painful. It was him. By the grace of an unforeseen seating chart, the man from the plane was again sitting next to me. I whispered to Kristen that I knew this man. I would tell her the details later. My heart raced for a spell. I ate my black grouper with pea shoots, creme fraiche and cara cara oranges (fantastic) with mild distraction. I waited until it was time to leave and as he continued a story about something inevitably designed to seem interesting, I interrupted.

He remembered me. He said "You're the poet." I briefly told his date our story and then reminded him of our discussion about moving to New York. I'd actually done it despite my fears. He was congratulatory and thought that he had convinced me somehow. I let him have that. I told him I recognized his voice. He laughed. He asked me if we had exchanged business cards on our flight. We hadn't. Last night, he didn't have one on him and I'm not one of those types. I told him that I was sure we'd run into each other again and wished them both a good night. With some people, it's ok to play a game of musical chairs.

I told Kristen the man's story in the car on the way home. She agreed that I had had no choice but to say hello. I think his date may have been so impressed by this random coincidence that I might have helped him score some pleasantly unexpected ass. Unexpected because this time around, I realized that while he is truly hopeful for love, he's sort of a boring man. But fortunately, my life isn't boring. My life is amazing.