This column first appeared in April 2011.
A man walked past me as I sat at a table outside of my local pub. I glanced up from my reading and caught his eye. He smiled and said, “Kind of a nice day for that.”
“It’s a great day for that,” I said, and lifted my green bottle of beer to him in salutation. I took out a little notebook to write about that moment, and I wondered what “that” was.
It was the second day of spring, 70 degrees and balmy and I had taken a walk. I stopped for a salad and a beer. The pub has outside seating, so I went outside to the steel tables and chairs to eat and read a book of poetry I’d just purchased.
I had lowered the book, “Picnic, Lightning” by Billy Collins, to my left thigh; my right arm was on the steel surface of the table and my right hand was curled around a bottle of Rolling Rock beer. I was wearing a green t-shirt with the name of the pub on it — I am a player on its pool team — and a green ball cap with “Jameson” written above the brim. When the man was past me and I was writing in my notebook, I wondered what “that” was, that he felt the day was good for. I presume that he saw those things — book, t-shirt, beer, hat — when he smiled at me about “that.”
What was “that” that he saw?
In the movie “Garden State,” an “emotionally detached” Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) confides in Sam (Natalie Portman) in a scene before a burning fireplace. He has just told the story of how he was responsible for his mother’s infirmity.
“I was the reason she was in a wheelchair. I pushed her. So there that is.” Then he wants to talk about “good stuff, glass half-full things.” He says to Sam, “I like you. There’s that, and I guess I have that.”
Some months ago during a conversation with my second bride, I mentioned that I was watching a “judge show” on TV.
“How’s that going?” she asked. The “that” she was inquiring about was the status of my stage of grief. My mother, who had recently died, used to be addicted to what she called her “judge shows.” She would hang up on me during a phone conversation, saying that her “judge shows” were coming on.
Our “thats” are many and layered: “that” girl, who is “all that;” we “shake that,” “make that,” “fake that.” I have a lot of “thats:” calls from my daughters about the definitions of words, and calls from my son about what pool stick to buy; babbling messages from my two year-old granddaughter and solemn conversations with my six year-old grandson. My friend calls me to say, “I love you. That’s all; I love you.” On my birthday, my sister posted on her social networking page that she “grew up with (two) big brothers,” and she “thought there was nothing more awesome than big brothers.” She remembered to give me a birthday card three days after my brother died, and a Father’s Day card 13 days after my mother died.
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what “that” was for the man, that day; it doesn’t matter that I will never know what he meant. It was a pleasant moment in a pleasant time on a pleasant day, and we all need more of that. And we also need a friend who will ask how “that” is going when we’re grieving.
There’s that, and I have that.
cjon3acd@att.net