June 9, 1991
Hasta Manana is one of those little European restaurants that you read about in the lives of famous authors. You descend from the street into its small whitewashed room, into the heady smells of baking cheese, garlic, onion, and spices.
Behind the bar, a bar made of salvaged, but unrefinished, wood are the cup boards--arranged in such a way to make you think how the word originated. Row after row of cups, all European in style, rest two deep on the shelves, in sets of 6 or 8, a singular one here and there in their midst.
The barstools are covered with a dirty and torn brocade. In salvaging the furnishings, nothing was redone, so the restaurant seems older than it is and authentic, not designed. Authentic save for the braids of plastic vegetables that give the cashier's counter the air of a cheap Italian restaurant.
The customers are mostly young, smartly-dressed women. I wonder where all the men in this country are. Probably in a dark, crowded office. Women here have free rein to the fruits of men's labors and they enjoy the rewards of new wealth: shopping, eating, going to the theater.
Two other women, both Japanese, sit at the bar with me, also writing. I always regret that I learn how to live in a life just as I am about to leave it. Perhaps, once I master it, I have to go on to something else. Or maybe after I decide to leave, I pay closer attention to the details around me, and I let go a little and let myself play. After all, when one is leaving one has nothing to fear, nothing to lose, in being thought foolish.
M2 said it was important to have friends for whom she didn't have to edit herself. And then she took her discussion further and said she liked people who liked those parts of her that the majority of people wished her to edit. It is best, I agree, to be loved not only for who we are, but for those things that make us different.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
June 09, 2007
Share Your Thoughts
I always regret that I learn how to live in a life just as I am about to leave it.