Jim Hare classic posts Archives

Momentary Jewel

I sit looking out the large circle window at Café Carpe Diem, the
trendy java hut that occupies half of the art deco style grocery
building called The Royal Market. We lived in this part of town nearly
twenty years ago when Joe arrived from New Jersey and bought the
market from an Asian couple that had run it for many years. He is
still here, and he has transformed it from a dusty, crammed
throwback to the days before supermarkets, to an uptown,
neighborhood gathering place.

Sharon and I have returned to the neighborhood to live part time for
the next year. We rented a romantic little flat on Front Street, just half
a block from where we lived before. In fact we have the same
landlady, Gloria. We think of it as our urban vacation home for the
next year.

We kept contact with Gloria over the years. She used to own several
properties on the street but has sold all but one. Now we live on the
corner, with three other tenants, on the bottom floor of Gloria’s
1880’s mansion.

This whole block was mansions in the old days. Now, whenever
owners die, their homes are razed for multilevel condo projects.
Many of the grandest and best-preserved wonders of nineteenth
century architecture are now dwarfed in the shadows of high-rises,
waiting for their turn. Sadness.

There is a haunting feel to living in our little corner of a majestic
building with so much history. Not in a spooky sense, but in a time-
aware sort of way. Who walked these floors a hundred and twenty
years ago?

So large is this place, that our entire living quarters are remodeled
from what was once the dining room. The dining room! We live in a
dining room! There are five separate living spaces in this one house.

We’re the only ones with a private patio and back door entrance to
Gloria’s living space. We reach through the latticework, unlatch the
gate, walk along the vined walkway to Gloria’s patio and call out as
we go through the gate. You can find us sitting at Gloria’s kitchen
table, chatting up the wise and loquacious octogenarian. She is
amazingly active and alert…maybe more so than us. What genes!!
She claims her longevity and health are due to the constant projects
she undertakes, most notably the improvements to the building, and
the lush artwork of her landscaping. We live in a showcase museum.

They say you can’t go back, but here we are. We’re not trying to be
the same people we were then, to recapture our youth. One really
can’t go back in that sense. Yet, it is such an old neighborhood, and
so familiar, that after only a few days, there are moments it seems we
never left.

I could never have imagined sitting in this neighborhood, in a private
label sort of Starbucks like this one, wirelessly connected to the
world through a computer that I can carry around with me. But here I
am, watching palm trees waving in the sea breeze while I surf and
write. The view out this round window has not changed at all in the
thirty years I’ve known the place. At this moment, it is a time
machine sort of experience, and I’ve brought the laptop back with me.
Or maybe I’ve jumped forward into the amazement of this instant.

All of history's moments strung together,
In a necklace of images.
A linear jewel piece adornment we wear,
Of fossils and bones and tools of stone,
Glyphs on rock, and sculptures,
Pigments spread on canvas,
Faint scratchings on brittle pages,
Of words that hold thoughts
That call to us through time,
Left behind for the detectives of wonder
Who search for the particular gem
Of our own generation’s momentary bead
On the squash blossom mosaic of our human heritage;
The Darwinian journey of our species,
Through the pages of holy myth,
Reflected in the facets of each and every precious instant.

Re: Momentary Jewel

Re: Momentary Jewel

Re: Momentary Jewel

Re: Momentary Jewel