Love, Life, Thanks

I did one of those Tweet Clouds yesterday where Twitter users can see which words they tweet most frequently. Looking at the cloud, it seemed my top three words were "love," "life," and "thanks," which I liked a lot and seemed fitting, but on closer inspection I realized that my three most-used words were actually "wedding," "time," and "night." Oh, right, there was that whole six-month period this year when I discussed almost nothing else but my nuptials. Still, I feel pretty good that "hope," "happy," and "people" are among my top words as opposed to, say, "despair," "sadness," and "nobody." Also, Chicago was at the top of my list, but no New York, not yet.

I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago. I wandered through my old neighborhood, danced and laughed with my friends, and drank champagne for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At Cafe Bong I sang my whole karaoke repetoire, hugged the owner multiple times, and left with a free Heineken stuffed in my purse. "I have to close now!" Jinny said at 2 AM, handing me the beer as a peace offering. "You drink it next place!" she said, pushing me out the door.

Earlier that day I walked along a street near Roscoe Village and felt a pang of homesickness. Actually, what I felt first was familiarity, and something deeper than that — comfort, I guess. That street near Roscoe Village, that street whose name I couldn't even tell you, a street I may or may not have ever walked along suddenly felt more familiar to me than anything else I'd experienced in recent months. It felt like home.

                                               °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Yesterday, by a combination of lucky mistakes, great timing, and some good old-fashioned sweet talk, Drew and some friends and I ended up in a most magical bar at the outskirts of Brooklyn, in Red Hook. The bar, Sunny's, is usually closed on Sundays, but the six of us or so were able to finagle our way in for the late afternoon into early evening. We caught up on each other's Thanksgivings, shared some leftovers, and listened to a college station on the small radio behind the bar.

Sunny's is a well, worn-in joint near the river with slanted floors, cracked red leather booths, and nautical-themed artwork and family photos on the walls. It's not a shiny place, but it glows. There's even a banjo made out of a bedpan in one corner. 

"I like your bar," I said to Sunny when he came back from having dinner with his wife and daughter next door. 

The booze had made me feel warm, but not yet dizzy, and I was in that zen-like spot between mindfulness and daydreaming. Everything, of course, was painfully significant.

"I appreciate that you like my bar," said Sunny, who has eyes like shiny marbles and a long, thick mop of grey hair on his head, "but when people say that, what they really mean is that they recognize something in the bar that they like about themselves. You like things that remind you of what you like in yourself."

Hope, happy, people, love, life, thanks. I guess he's right.

Comments

[ChicagoJen]

Welcome back to blogging, Wendy. We (I) missed you!

And how fitting that you mention Cafe Bong. A coworker recently got engaged and she mentioned possibly going to Cafe Bong for her wedding's after-party. I nodded that I knew the place when in truth I've never been there.

Profound bar owner--that Sunny. I like that.

[Dj]

Sunny is very wise. However, if that's true, does that mean we are "dives"?

Ha ha.

[Kim]

Welcome back -- we've missed your posts!!

[teahouseblossom]

How astute and eloquent of Sunny!

[Charise]

I really like the writing in this post, Wendy!

And so true, what Sunny said. : )