that’s open late. That’s all I want. Anyone ever read that story? I love that story. I have since I first read it in high school. It’s never left me. Neither the feeling nor the phrase. A clean well lighted place.
I don’t believe that life is nothing and then nothing and nothing and then nothing. And, fortunately, I don’t dread the emptiness of going home. But, sometimes, I do. Not the emptiness, exactly, but…the isolation of it, I suppose. And sometimes I just want to be away from the neediness of it.
Tonight, I wanted a clean well lighted place to write. Away from the messiness of daily life. And nothing is open late anymore. Not any of the clean well lighted places where I don’t feel guilty for keeping a table, anyway. So I ended up sitting in a shopping center plaza near a stand alone fireplace. It’s a nice plaza. They have the nice café string lights and comfortable seating. Tonight, when it was just chilly, sitting next to the fire was wonderful. It gave off just enough warmth.
Of course, the fire cut off at ten. Not very late, if you ask me. I say it could have gone at least until eleven. But that’s all right. It isn’t like the warmth from the fire is going to be enough that long after dark for more than a few weeks. I wonder if I’ll find somewhere to go in the winter when it’s too cold to sit outside like that. I just like late better than the afternoon. The world has a different energy when the busy places are quiet.
Until then, I’ll be grateful for the firelight and the public table and the story that describes the feeling so very well. “A clean well lighted place” by Earnest Hemingway.
