Table For One

It's Friday night. There are families and couples and bands of friends seated at various tables in the crowded restaurant. The lights are dim enough to obscure faces, but remain bright enough for me to recognize the flash of smiles, the opening of mouths, the tilting of heads and wine glasses. There is an unceasing background orchestra: the quiet staccato of plate against cutlery, the crescendo and diminuendo of conversations rising and fading, the chords of polite laughter and the occasional chuckle.

I am an island of silence in such a sea of conversational symphonies. There is one set of cutlery, one wine glass, one napkin at my table. I dine alone tonight.

I do this occasionally, taking time off to dine on my own. I am the only person in the fifty table restaurant dining sans companions. The waiter who showed me to my seat most definitely had a look of confusion, then politely masked pity after he asked me: "How many are you dining with today sir?" Some diners' gazes wander to the empty chair in front of me, probably wondering if my date had abandoned me. Little do they know I do this out of choice. 

At first, years ago, it was out of necessity, the consequences of odd hours, a fussy palate and the absence of friends, most of them studying overseas. Why would anyone choose to eat alone?

True, eating alone is, initially, a deeply uncomfortable experience. A seeping loneliness tends to drench you, like a raw egg cracked over your head, cold and cloying and all over you. You drain your bowl of soup only to realize that slowly as you hear the laughter and the multitude of conversations that the clientele is emptying your heart as well, absorbing your silence and turning it into oh so vacuous alienation.

The irony of such solitude is that it occurs in the midst of so many people. It is quite unlike any other sort of being alone. Driving alone tends to be distracted by music, the bastard who overtook you without signalling, the flurry of motorcycles weaving in left and right. Constant vigilance is required. Reading, watching TV or playing video games is a profoundly connective sort of seclusion, for while we are by ourselves we constantly feel, relate, attempt to understand and follow the lives of those others. And then all the rest of the solo activity list can be checked off as either necessity or distraction.

A meal with oneself is different. Precisely because you are in the midst of so many others, you are constantly being reminded of the companionship you are missing out on. You are forced to reckon with the fact that you are truly alone. It is perhaps an event of true loneliness.

Of course, most people resort to distraction. Always the iPhone to cook up some Instagram photo and Facebook status, garnished with an excess of hashtags and sprinkled with a selfie or two to assuage the asinine ego. Or the absent minded turning of a coffee stained newspaper, pretending to pore over the news that reports the same corruption, same celebrities, same old circus of a country over and over again. And if idle pursuits fail then comes haste, a swift devouring of the required sustenance without tasting, and an impatient tapping on the table as the bill comes far too slowly, before beating a retreat back into the world of known people, however fickle and superficial those interactions may be. 

"Ah yes John, how are you? I'm fine hope you're good too! Oh that thing... Oh that was Leonard's project, not mine. Oh no, it's quite alright, how are the er... ah yes, the two girls! Oh, in primary school already? Jessica must be proud. Oh right, sorry, I always get your ex and her mixed up, so sorry! Myself I'm doing fine...er yes I'm still at that company, all is good and well! (but really I just got fired but I'm not going to waste your time, you don't really want to know)"

So yes, deeply uncomfortable. But I have learned to enjoy these moments. I come from a family that has always insisted on meal time as a communal act with all the force of tradition, and a circle of friends that has always pitied the poor sod eating alone in a crowded restaurant. My friends are puzzled over the fact that I do in fact enjoy eating alone, and insist that I call them along to the next meal so I need not dine solo. It's understandable. 

Now I enjoy company as much as any other person, but there is a certain... peace of mind that comes when I dine alone. Over time, I've learned to discard the distractions, the expectations, the stares. And what is left is something that gives me a profound grounding.

Dining alone is one of the few activities that allows myself to simply be. I am in the moment. The here and now. There is a certain hyper-awareness that washes over me. Colours and smells become more vibrant. The ever so slight vibrations in my knife as I slice into a steak. The hint of herbs in the spagghetti before me. The firm but moist texture of risotto as I slowly chew and savor. Actions become more deliberate, movements measured.

Then there is the observing. To look around a restaurant, and realize it's like an exhibition of so many worlds, little bubbles of society that are so evanescent and fragile they only last as long as the food continue and is popped at the ding of the cash register. To see the sweat on the brows of waiters scurrying back and forth, the hidden scowls of waitresses as they deal with yet another change of mind, the bemused expression on a bartender as he indulges a child demanding to know why she cannot drink the beverages on display, as a hapless papa hovers protectively. I suppose it is almost voyeuristic. But a writer thrives on such observations.

By far the most observed is the self. When I eat alone, I am left with only myself as company. It is a ritual of self examination that I withdraw into in moments of confusion or crisis. The restaurant becomes a hall of mirrors, with every customer, waiter, and chef metamorphosing into reflecting glasses. I see myself through them. Perhaps this is the true reason why dining alone is so uncomfortable. Because everybody is to a certain degree insecure with themselves ... and you are never truly alone even when nobody is around, you are always facing your own demons and personalities and dreams and frustrations and perversions. 

It's Friday night, and I am dining on my own, but not alone.

Mmm. That piece of meat was really juicy. 

"Meeting" Taken December 2013, NY. OKJ.
Click for larger image.

Metempsychosis

Somehow, the parade and the block party of the President's Inaugural evoked in me a deep-seated, irrational fear.

At first there was the excitement, the thrill that came with trailing the jolly band, the colorful procession of trumpets, whistles and drums. President Salovey was in high spirits, waving to his bevy of followers, the faculty clad in full dress and regalia were prancing away, the whole scene was one of and joy and jubilation. I scrambled after the marching company, snapping away on my smartphone, tailing them like the paparazzi.

Then this overwhelming sense of deja vu crept in, like a raw egg cracked over a bare heart, the liquid coating it in an eerie coldness of life lost. It was not the first time I was doing this. I had been in this situation before, the intrepid, excited reporter seeking a snapshot of the band. The chasing after a marching company, the noises and beats of drum and fanfare, the beautiful chaos of the moment: these were familiar to me.

I had experienced all of it during my time in the protest movement. The excitement, the joy of seeing so many turn out to support the cause of free and fair elections, to see people power in the making! I had been there, documenting everything in my mind and my camera, running frantically after the tails of this or that prominent politician or activist. I still think about it and my heart swells with joy.

But such joy was always temporary. Something would always turn ugly. The police would crackdown, someone would be trampled by the crowds, a horrific car acccident would occur. I often thought of that momentary joy in the odd lens of tall building suicide. Jumping off a building, there is perhaps a moment when you feel the gust of wind against your cheeks, your arms spread like an eagle ready to soar, and maybe, just maybe you think ironically by descending you ascend the heights of ecstasy. But such a moment is always fleeting, and then you hit the ground and your body splatters against a hard concrete ground or somebody's Lamborghini and it's all over, you're literally brought back to a blood soaked earth.

As I followed the president's procession, a mounting sense of urgency overtook my joy. As I looked to President Salovey and the smile on his face, I had this sudden feeling that all was not well, and that at any moment shouts of joy would turn into screams of terror. My "Spider-Sense" went on high alert.

I tried to reassure myself nothing could possibly go wrong, walking backwards to capture the scene. Then I turned to walk forwards and was confronted with the sight of a police car. The officer smiled and lightly tapped my shoulder to direct me to the sides. I recoiled slightly from his touch.

It felt incredibly odd to see a smiling police officer. When I had been working in the protest movement as secretary to an NGO coalition, the police were people you avoided. They represented the authorities who were looking for any crack in your defenses, any excuse to clamp down and end it all.

I had witnessed with my own eyes police dragging people out on the streets, beating them to a pulp and narrowly escaped such a fate myself. I had evaded trailing police vans in the dead of night, trying to rendezvous with my colleagues just released from detainment for voicing their dissent, at one time even switching meeting points 3 times to slip out under the watchful eyes of the police. I had choked on tear gas, been bruised by a stray canister, run frantically away from them in a cat and mouse game in the narrow street alleys of Kuala Lumpur.

And now they were the good guys.

Trying to ignore the storm of emotions I turned to my usual refuge, food. Food trucks galore presented themselves and for the first time that day, in the midst of Snowcones, kettle corn and fried dough everything seemed better. Free food always makes me happy.

Despite it all, the specter of ruinous protests still lingered in the back of my mind. It was so ridiculously irrational yet it was something of an instinct I had developed. You needed to be constantly on high alert to survive. Surveying the scene, I couldn't help but notice how calm everything was. It was organized chaos. Images of destruction and mayhem flashed in my head in stark contrast.

The giant inflatable bulldog stood tall as a monument to the nature of the block party: full of a festive air, way over the top and comical.

I thought about the other "monuments" that I had encountered in protest. There were the barbed wire fences, hastily set up to prevent citizens from gathering, ironically enough, in Freedom Square. There were the ominous black vans, complete with cages in the back that transported away many a friend. And then there was the smashed up, overturned police car pounded to bits by angry protestors, and left as it was for hours into the aftermath, like some grotesque monument attesting to the ugliness of the mob, the chaos of what became a riot, the blurred lines between right and wrong.

I didn't have much time to ruminate as I was pulled along into a line of fawning students wanting a part in the event I called the SSS: Selfie Sunday with Salovey.

It was good fun and when I got back I thought about making it my profile picture, just for bragging rights and all. I'm not a fan of selfies so I don't take many photos of myself, I prefer to be the guy taking the photo or if I am already wielding the camera I prefer to take monochrome shots of inanimate objects like buildings or leaves or some abstract act piece.

So I looked through my previous profile pictures and stumbled upon one from a long time ago. There I was, getting my shot taken in front of a line of riot police. The two photos with two very different figures of authority.

I reflected long and hard on the day, and it's taken me weeks to be able to pen down some of the feelings I felt, and even then I don't feel like I'm doing them justice.

It took me a long while to realize I had nothing to fear. The police were not going to pull out a gun and start shooting into the crowd, the only smoke that appeared was from a fog machine not a tear gas canister, and President Salovey certainly wasn't going to go berserk and choke me with that  flashy looking necklace thing (though I can imagine such a scene in a future YSO Halloween show). As I calmed down and the ridiculousness of it all dawned upon me, I felt something else.

At first, I was confused at what I was feeling. It was a sensation alien to me especially at such events, when always I had to look over my shoulder, evaluate every street to assess its viability for a swift escape, or keep a wary distance between a police officer and myself. Then I realized what it was I was feeling.

For the first time in the longest time, I felt safe. I felt welcomed.

I felt free.

"Horizon Beyond Chains" Taken November 2011. Milford Sound, NZ.
Click to view higher quality photo.