the sound of one hand clapping

In the movie, a boy fell in love with a girl, and kissed her beneath a lamppost, beside a river. It was a great kiss.

I find myself feeling restless, at the time when the light is just beginning to dim. I head outside, my laptop in my bag, and walk. I follow my feet. I walk past an SUV, sitting in a driveway, with a black man in his thirties in the driver’s seat. He calls after me just as I pass, asks me how to get to the “highway” and I give him directions to I-5, thinking in the back of my mind that anyone who’s gotten off the freeway that dominates Seattle shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it again. The rest of the conversation goes something like this:

Man, can I just say that you are gorgeous?
Um, thanks.
You lived in Seattle very long?
Yeah, I went to school at SPU.
(some comments about Queen Anne vs. Bellevue)
Man, you really are gorgeous. Do you model?
No.
Well, you should try it. I mean, seeing you in the light of that street lamp, your skin and everything, man, you are gorgeous.
Okay, well, I think I’ll keep walking. Nice to meet you.

I walk on, the light fading out, the shadows creeping in. I walk past dark houses, through silent blocks. At a corner a jogger meets me and I literally jump. My feet take me to Kerry Park and I sit down, with the space needle looming in front of me, dominating the city, and all the lights blending together as if there is just one, rather large, rather postmodern building making up all of downtown. I sit in the midst of Asian tourists and third dates, looking at the few stars not obliterated by light-pollution, wishing it were quiet, realizing that tonight it won’t be. Wishing there were something beautiful to watch, but here there are no young French Jews falling in love. Here is just the noisy city, on just another summer evening.
I think of the time I sat on the edge of a lake in the middle of the night, with only a trace of light from the moon filtering through the clouds, and didn’t see, yet saw, a silent bird wing past me. The spirit hovering above the waters.
But such things won’t happen here. This night hasn’t given me what I want, whatever that is. I feel everything is a cheap imitation of what should be, what might be. I sit awhile longer, listening, but hear only my echoing desire to be somewhere else. I follow my tired feet home, to my bed, and sleep without dreaming.