Dinner Party at Pliny the Younger's
On Saturday, our friends Marjorie Merriweather and Pliny the Younger cooked us a fancy three-course dinner. St. Frances probably gave me too much latitude that night, as I checked my phone constantly, trying to scheme the Muni schedule and get us to Pliny's place in Noe faster. We ended up traveling in a great big 'O' – giving up on the 24, which was running late, and hopping on the 6 to meet up with the J, which we overshot, and got on the F instead, which took us back almost exactly the corner where we were waiting for the 24, only now it was long gone.
This was an experience that bore out St. Frances's more Zen approach to public transportation: the bus will come when the bus comes.
At dinner, too, St. Frances may have given me more latitude than I could handle. I get the feeling She doesn't enjoy dragging up the past the way I do. To me, the past is the key to who I am. We came from a rather exceptional background, and I can get lost sometimes if I'm not reminded how much that background shaped me. So, when Pliny and Marjorie started talking about old times, when we all grew up together, I jumped right in.
St. Frances got up from the table and went to sit in the living room. I think she would prefer we dwell on who we are now, on who we can be, rather than on who we were.
Once again, she plays the Zen master to my over-eager and bumbling novice.
