The True Path of Lunch, Andrew wondered, strolling out on Rowanton pier to be once more surrounded by the swell and ripples of the spring chastened lake, well, it was better than The Hidden Language of Hugs, surely. He’d been looking for a new theme to work on, in this new spring, now that Playing Frisbee with Existentialist Angst had exhausted its appeal. Lunch, its foreplay, indulgence and fond reminiscence, could well be a path in life, one that exercised the imagination, trained the rebellious ego and satisfied the restless spirit in its quest for an appropriate discipline to embody its energies.
The Japanese tea ceremony stood out as a signpost. Of course, anything could be ritualised into significance, washroom visits included. But think of all the yoga bunnies, runners and cyclists desperate to subdue their rampant irregularities into acceptable expression. Let’s normalise those shameful eruptions shall we? He could see posters about town, advertising his new course, “The True Path Of Lunch – the way, the truth, the life”. Sounded enticing, no?
Although an unusually warm day for mid May, the pier was sparsely populated. The jacketed walkers, avec pooch or stroller, and sometimes both, were easy to avoid, not always the case in July. He reached the end, feeling the random bluster of cool breeze on his sun warmed face and thrilled to the contrast, his all-time favourite attribute of the season. Spring in southern Ontario, what was there not to like?
Spring. The Arab Spring. He’d think about that later, maybe over lunch. Right now he gazed at the back of a woman, of white-blonde pedigree, perched on the end of the pier, her legs dangling, her left hand holding a cell to her ear and her right positioning a camera onto the water, where one of several yachts were being brought into focus. She described her efforts to a friend somewhere in the wide world, probably Rowanton, but it could easily be Vancouver, Brussels, or Luton. Andrew did actually know someone who claimed to be from Luton. A member of Parliament in fact. A loudmouth who regularly got themselves in headline-grabbing trouble and was eventually chivvied into resigning. He’d ofttimes suspected the Luton tag to be a headline grabber, something that Rick Mercer might latch onto one day. Maybe in a moment this tech savvy blonde would download an ebook and begin to read it. Or read it to her friend, who might be in Warsaw and require a translation.
Andrew was held spellbound by the display, and in the various seconds of its unfoldment, thought he’d chatted with the woman in his favoured caffeine dispensary, her curly mane being the tip-off, and also fondly, in that word association football schtick, recalled that great Robin Tower ballad Spellbound, sung by the never- to-be- forgotten James Dewar. Andrew’s musical concordance to the Golden Decade 65-75, now there was something he could get to work on. An internet radio show maybe? The white blonde woman apologised to the cell and stood up carefully. He watched fascinated as she trained the implement on an incoming yacht, shouting at the occupants to smile because it was going on Facebook any moment. The urban sailors, one who looked suspiciously like a son, grinned and waved and groaned. Andrew turned toward town and the prospect of lunch, and who knows, maybe even some lunch partners.
A teensy bit of trouble that, when you’re all woolly with wealth, digging up someone to lunch with. That’d have to be the first module in the seminar he guessed: uncovering appropriate lunch partners. No, pinpointing appropriate lunch partners. Yes, more precise somehow. He strolled past the Selfless Estate, with its period furnishings and appointments. On his last visit he’d felt quickly submerged in Rowanton’s Great Lakes past. The volunteers in period dress could easily pass for the real thing. One branch of the underground railroad ended nearby and some of the heritage homes had endured raids by angry US slave owners determined, at gunpoint, to have their investments returned. The transportation and trade provide by those majestic waterways were, more or less the raison d’etre for communities like Rowanton. One of the estate buildings was the former customs house and the old post office still stood mere yards away. Old Rowanton was something of a pop-up museum itself. Walking through time, that’s how he often felt, making the trek from lakeside to Main street.
