In a “ships that pass in the night” situation, I learned
today that she took er mother to Asbury park on Friday, and only a last minute
issue at home kept us from possibly encountering her there, since we had scheduled
a trip to the same place for the same day, as part of a weekly Magical Mystery
Tour.
We don't go to Asbury park every Friday, but usually make our
pilgrimage there once or twice a month, sometimes staying overnight if there
are good bands playing in one of the clubs.
The fact that she made this trip all the way up from where
she lives surprised me, though the incident proves just how small a world it is
we live in, and how sometimes people end up in the same place at the same time,
purely by accident, such as those trips we took to Woodstock that just happened
to correspond with her living there back in 2009.
I should not have been surprised by this most recent trip
since I already knew she had gone to Asbury in the past, and in of her stay
fact, that painful summer, how jealous I was when she posted a picture of her
stay at the Majestic in the neighboring town, and whether or not she had gone
there with my boss.
Coincidence is nothing new, and perhaps because I've been
posting old journals, this was inevitable – a touching upon Jung's collective
unconscious, so as to cause us to be in the same place at the same time,
regardless of whether we intended to do so.
Oddly enough, she wore the same hat (or one very much like
it) that I had so admired back when we first started seeing each other – now
more than a decade again-- which made seeing the image of her dancing on the
beach that much more stunning.
At 44, she has lost none of her magic, and seemed like a sea
sprite dancing around a wooden poll in the sand, as if she had just risen from
the sea.
I can’t imagine what I would have felt if we had actually
met, though it is possible we would have passed each other unnoticed.
Our routine is to park and then walk from the casino up the
boardwalk to the arcade, pausing at Madam Marie's where there is a bench for Springsteen’s
sax play, Clarence – itself an ironic concept as if we thought of Clarence as
an angle from “It's a wonderful Life” and needed to get his blessing before we
continued to make our tour, coffee, then a walk through town.
I guess I feel a little saddened that we did not go and did
not see her, even though if I'd seen her soon enough and she did not see me, I
would have tried to avoid the encounter.
I still remember the last time I was accurately in the same
place with her, as some school named after Bob Menendez, and how sad she looked
and lost, sitting high up in the auditorium with her camera in her lap.
This is one more bit of irony, too, since the reason I could
not go to Asbury was because I had to cover the indictment of Menendez.
One more sad bit in a long sad story, though she looked so
joyful dancing on the sand, I expect she has finally escaped the madness this
county's politics inspires and may actually be happy somewhere.
Her trip to New Jersey raises unanswered questions from a
decade ago, as to whom she is with, and what kind of life she leads.
Since she has not, to my knowledge, posted any poems in a
decade, I lack even that venue to determine her current status, and I'm left to
guess from the images she posts about how she is getting on.
The sea side has always been a magical place for her, where
she can let painful things go, and so, it was good to see her there, even if
I'm not.
It is unlikely she'll make that same trip anytime soon, and
so, I can feel safe going there next time, though one can't quite trust fate,
since who knew she would venture there at a time I was also going to be there.
I've convinced myself over the last ten years that we would
never see each other again
Perhaps, fate has other plans. Only time will tell-- even at
my age as time runs out.
Just ships passing in the night.
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