around with a name like
Bo-din-day
?” he says, mocking the pronunciation. “Not dis Creole!”
Bo disappears again and Andy leans in toward me. “Steven, a lot of my friends come here on Thursdays. Sort of a regularly
scheduled meeting you don’t have to show up for. So usually everybody does. I wanted to introduce you to some of my world.
There’s someone here I’d really like you to meet. The person who helped me through a lot.”
Over the next fifteen minutes or so, the deck begins to fill with dozens of people who all seem to know Andy. The interactions
are so fast and fun, I’m almost afraid to speak. Andy smiles and whispers, “Relax. Just be you. They’re all mostly harmless.”
I’m so overwhelmed at first that I fail to notice that the deck is in front of an ocean. And the restaurant marks the entrance
to a pier. I suddenly know exactly where we are. This used to be my world. We’re at Washington between Marina del Rey and
Venice Beach. This cul-de-sac has been home to impromptu farmers markets all the way back to my childhood. There’s nothing
like this stretch. The pier has always separated Southern California wealth and opulence from maybe the most bizarre strand
of post-hippie culture anywhere in the world.
Wow! I haven’t been here in a long time.
As Andy works the deck, I replay memories of riding bikes down here with childhood friends.
My gaze is interrupted as I notice a striking and stylishly dressed middle-aged woman at the table next to me. She is beautiful
in the way all women should be when they get to their fifties. Her hair is as wild as her colorfully flowing peasant dress.
On both arms she wears a bundle of thin silver bracelets, which make light clinking sounds as she moves. She isn’t trying
to hide the gray that has crept in, which makes her even more cool and beautiful. I want to take a picture and tell Lindsey,
“Remember this. This is what you must look like twenty years from now.”
Maybe I’ll wait on that for a bit.
She looks so totally at peace and comfortable with herself in the midst of a noticeably younger crowd. She is tapping away
at a laptop. She glances over and gives me a kind smile and nod. Andy notices my staring as he returns to the table.
“That’s Cynthia. I wanted you to meet her first. She’s working on a book. Something about first-generation immigrants in America.”
“Working, as in laboring, as in plodding… ,” she adds, drifting effortlessly from her table to ours. “Forgive my rudeness,
but I have a flair for overhearing conversations.”
Andy stands. “Cynthia, this is—”
“Steven,” she finishes without missing a beat.
Great. Another mind reader.
She reaches for my hand, her bracelets making that jingling sound. Cynthia looks as if she could be my sixty-two-year-old
mother—if my mother were a lot hipper, flamboyant, and attractive.
Cynthia is at once incredibly disarming and overwhelming. She’s one of those rare people who can sit too closely (as she is
at this moment), without you minding much. She seems to be studying your eyes, reading your personal history while casually
mulling among any of seven different thoughts that might come out of her mouth.
Andy interrupts. “I’ve got to wash up. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Suddenly the moment is broken.
What have I gotten myself into? I’ve got to get back to work.
There is an awkward silence for a few moments. Cynthia is very content to just smile and stare at me.
“So you’re writing a book?” I ask, mostly to stop the silence and the staring.
She rolls her eyes. “Ohh!” she says. “I’m never going to survive it.”
“It’s about immigrants?”
“Refugees, mostly. Dear, there are rather consistent characteristics to every people group that most easily adapt into a new
culture. Did you know that?”
Before I can answer she continues, “Of course you didn’t. That’s why I’m writing the book, isn’t it?
Bo-din-day
?” he says, mocking the pronunciation. “Not dis Creole!”
Bo disappears again and Andy leans in toward me. “Steven, a lot of my friends come here on Thursdays. Sort of a regularly
scheduled meeting you don’t have to show up for. So usually everybody does. I wanted to introduce you to some of my world.
There’s someone here I’d really like you to meet. The person who helped me through a lot.”
Over the next fifteen minutes or so, the deck begins to fill with dozens of people who all seem to know Andy. The interactions
are so fast and fun, I’m almost afraid to speak. Andy smiles and whispers, “Relax. Just be you. They’re all mostly harmless.”
I’m so overwhelmed at first that I fail to notice that the deck is in front of an ocean. And the restaurant marks the entrance
to a pier. I suddenly know exactly where we are. This used to be my world. We’re at Washington between Marina del Rey and
Venice Beach. This cul-de-sac has been home to impromptu farmers markets all the way back to my childhood. There’s nothing
like this stretch. The pier has always separated Southern California wealth and opulence from maybe the most bizarre strand
of post-hippie culture anywhere in the world.
Wow! I haven’t been here in a long time.
As Andy works the deck, I replay memories of riding bikes down here with childhood friends.
My gaze is interrupted as I notice a striking and stylishly dressed middle-aged woman at the table next to me. She is beautiful
in the way all women should be when they get to their fifties. Her hair is as wild as her colorfully flowing peasant dress.
On both arms she wears a bundle of thin silver bracelets, which make light clinking sounds as she moves. She isn’t trying
to hide the gray that has crept in, which makes her even more cool and beautiful. I want to take a picture and tell Lindsey,
“Remember this. This is what you must look like twenty years from now.”
Maybe I’ll wait on that for a bit.
She looks so totally at peace and comfortable with herself in the midst of a noticeably younger crowd. She is tapping away
at a laptop. She glances over and gives me a kind smile and nod. Andy notices my staring as he returns to the table.
“That’s Cynthia. I wanted you to meet her first. She’s working on a book. Something about first-generation immigrants in America.”
“Working, as in laboring, as in plodding… ,” she adds, drifting effortlessly from her table to ours. “Forgive my rudeness,
but I have a flair for overhearing conversations.”
Andy stands. “Cynthia, this is—”
“Steven,” she finishes without missing a beat.
Great. Another mind reader.
She reaches for my hand, her bracelets making that jingling sound. Cynthia looks as if she could be my sixty-two-year-old
mother—if my mother were a lot hipper, flamboyant, and attractive.
Cynthia is at once incredibly disarming and overwhelming. She’s one of those rare people who can sit too closely (as she is
at this moment), without you minding much. She seems to be studying your eyes, reading your personal history while casually
mulling among any of seven different thoughts that might come out of her mouth.
Andy interrupts. “I’ve got to wash up. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Suddenly the moment is broken.
What have I gotten myself into? I’ve got to get back to work.
There is an awkward silence for a few moments. Cynthia is very content to just smile and stare at me.
“So you’re writing a book?” I ask, mostly to stop the silence and the staring.
She rolls her eyes. “Ohh!” she says. “I’m never going to survive it.”
“It’s about immigrants?”
“Refugees, mostly. Dear, there are rather consistent characteristics to every people group that most easily adapt into a new
culture. Did you know that?”
Before I can answer she continues, “Of course you didn’t. That’s why I’m writing the book, isn’t it?
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