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| 50 x 50 - mixed media and collage on canvas - available! |
A GLASS OF
SHERRY AND A FEW OLIVES (AMOR FATI)
By age 23 not
a word of Jane
Austen had entered
my brain. I was waiting
for some
girl’s olive-textured laughter
to rise up through
the orange trees of Cordoba.
There was
no girl. With olive-textured anything.
I might
recognize that earlier me approaching
but I’d
hesitate to ask what’s up. I kind of know already.
Sullen and
unappreciative, he’d probably want
to know what’s
coming his way, what little disasters to
dive head-first
into, what pleasures to miss by a pubic hair.
Just kidding.
Maybe I’d
tell him about Kiera Knightley’s
smile in
“Pride and Prejudice,” the way
it splashes
its light all over
Mr. Darcy’s
miserable, besotted face.
Or that travelling
in Europe on twenty-bucks a
day is like
subsisting on bread sticks and tap water
in the
world’s largest gourmet food court. I remember him
stealing
croissants just delivered to a café in Avignon.
He knows
what’s going on. Hunger sharpens awareness.
Glass of
sherry, a few olives. I think he’s
hoping I’ll
buy him dinner. Cordoba, Andalucia,
Spain,
Europe, the World. His understanding of it all
limited to
the occasional stoned intuition, plus a mild case
of Dunning-Kruger
effect. We make fleeting eye-contact,
trying hard
not to love each other too much.
