Morning: at
the Redwood Cafe in Montavilla, where I just had a grand
breakfast: a “breakfast sandwich” of scrambled eggs and roast
pork and arugula on ciabata. Just why one makes “sandwiches” that
are too large to handle, I don't really understand: but you can eat
the innards as breakfast and the outards as toast and it works fine.
I was breakfasting in splendid isolation, but now a second customer
has come in. My fear of crowds was apparently misplaced.
Of course,
they don't open till nine – when the day is half over – so it's
more like lunch to me than breakfast. But I was getting increasingly
unhappy about driving all the way over to Tom's: it was the sort of
deep nonsense that cheap fuel fossil fuel breeds. A twenty minute
drive just to get breakfast? When there are cafes within walking
distance? (That serve, I have to admit, food that's much tastier and
much less processed.) There was a reluctance to really admit I live
in the Outer East; a reluctance to let go of our old neighborhood.
Also a
reluctance to let go of the cafes of my youth: Tom's is
indistinguishable from the cafes I grew up with. Whereas this place
has intentionally kitsch touches, walls painted a deep, saturated
red, and music that one might actually want to listen to. And, of
course, chairs rather than booths. The coffee is made with probably
double the count of beans per fluid ounce: if I treat it as agreeably
flavored water I'll be in for a case of the jitters.
And here,
of course – this is perhaps the heart of it – here I am an old
man. I've got thirty years on every other human being in this
establishment. At Tom's, I'm average-aged and in magnificent physical
condition: here I'm on the far side of the hill and distinctly
shopworn. My white hair flares in the morning light, and signals my
incongruity.
. . . derided by
A
kind of battered kettle at the heel.
But.
Good food, a candle struggling to stay alight in its lake of wax, and
a cloth napkin that delights my fingertips. I actually like all these
things. It's not so bad, sometimes, that the world changes.
7 comments:
I often wonder if these trendy places which we're reluctant to accept as replacements, whatever their advantages, will in time become as established and shabby and nostalgic as the ones we miss. I'm not convinced they will, I think they'll just change or fold as the fashion moves on.
I'm curious about this too, and hoping I'll live long enough (and eat at enough restaurants) to find out. I don't think the qualities that mark a long-lived restaurateur change much, though. You have to make it happen for people every single time they come through the door, using only the labor and materials you have on hand that day. There are never all that many people who can do that year after year.
I am amused as I get older to realize how I recognize and gravitate towards those in my tribe (age bracket). When I was younger all those old people looked alike!
Everything transmutes. Holding to the old thing is not the same as staying the same.
What shall I do with this absurdity-
O heart, O troubled heart-this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Although we all know that I adore Yeats, occasionally it's time for somebody else who is really quite good:
"To me, fair friend, you never can be old."
Just remember, you're not just "an old man." You're "a grand old man" of poems and good work and an expert body thumper.
Loved this post. I love all your posts. Reading "Mole" is like time with a best friend. Delighted to the point of hysterics with "outards."
xoxo
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