Two more glasses of ice would be brought before my dinner was over.
I ate at the restaurant next to my hotel, not because it’s good, but because it’s easy. I had just wrapped up five days of grief therapy. I had been to the hotel restaurant on my first night in town, and then it closed for remodeling. Now, on my last night, it has reopened, and I’m eating here out of ease, and not for the culinary experience.
The closure all week got me out and about to better restaurants, one in particular where I could watch small planes taking off and landing from my seat at the bar. I’ve eaten there three times this week. It also happens to be in a vortex, one of four in Sedona. They are places where the Earth’s energy is particularly strong and is said to enhance spiritual growth and healing. I didn’t realize it was in a vortex when I went the first time, but I liked the restaurant even more for not advertising the vortex with specialty vortex drinks, or vortex vegetable of the day. The Mesa Grill felt comfortable to me, and I loved watching small planes taxi to their tie-down spots so close to where I was eating at the bar.
For the past five days, I’ve been immersed in various forms of therapy. I’ve had equine therapy, where the horses co-regulated their nervous system to mine, leaving me with a feeling of peace and a broken ankle that no longer hurt. I’ve hiked, to the extent that being in a boot would allow, to a vortex site where the practitioner brought me a chair to sit on and we talked, listened, and absorbed our beautiful surroundings. I’ve been introduced to a form of healing breath work, and I’ve learned about the native teachings of the medicine wheel and its significance to the seasons and the elements of the earth, all while honoring Emery. It was a ceremony that began with a coyote standing in front of the practitioner’s car as he drove us to a parking spot at Crescent Moon Park. The coyote stood in front of the car long enough that my therapist, Jim, put the car in park, while he explained the significance of a coyote’s presence. We listened and watched, and it was five minutes of a coyote looking at us, not moving, that I’ll never forget. So, tonight, I’m exhausted in the same way I feel after being in a writing workshop, but without the social element. It has all caught up to me, and all I want to do is sleep.
I asked my server for a glass of ice because I could see the margarita I ordered felt thin on ice, and I like to sip through the cubes. Did she notice I was in a different headspace than the rest of her customers, including the man on the opposite side of the patio who also had a boot on but seemed to be doing just fine with it and life in general? I don’t know. But she brought me a glass filled with crushed ice every time she was near my table. Crushed ice is barely ice, but I thanked her, and the glasses filled with ice melted as I made my way through my salad.
A mother and a daughter were seated next to me. I know this for a fact because I heard the younger of the two refer to the older woman as “Mom”. They wore similar shoes. Our tables on the outside patio were very close to each other, and their feet were in full view for me. I wondered if the daughter had told her mom about the shoes and the striped pants she wore, which seemed bold in contrast to the rest of her outfit. I’m guessing yes. I’m a self-proclaimed snoop, and I couldn’t help but overhear that it was the mom’s birthday. The daughter took photos of her mom and showed them to her. The mom didn’t like any of them. I understood. It was Emery and me, right down to the striped pants on the mom who rejected every photo but then said they were all fine, because that’s what moms do.
The daughter discussed an upcoming trip to Paris, mentioning that she might stay. The mom was hesitant about that idea. I wanted to insert my opinion and tell the mom to respond with unbridled enthusiasm. She can always visit, but I didn’t think the daughter was serious, and I think the mom knew that, simply because moms know, sometimes even before the daughter knows.
I noticed the daughter was wearing an engagement ring and wondered whether the two of them had shopped for a dress, found a location, or made any decisions together. Were they local to Sedona? I didn’t think so. Maybe they came up for the weekend from Phoenix, or one of them did, and the other flew in for a mother/daughter weekend. My mind goes wild when I’m seated alone and spying on the table next to me. Sometimes it’s for entertainment purposes, but tonight, it felt deeper, like I needed to step into a time I no longer had access to.
My server brought me another glass with ice. She’s trying. When she left, I looked at my phone because it seemed like the right thing to do, rather than at the mother-daughter duo next to me. And because of my shifting algorithm, a post on grief appeared first. It offered tips to calm your mind when logic doesn’t work. It instructed me to run through the alphabet, coming up with three words for each letter, with a free pass for X. I counted cars in the parking lot in front of me instead. There were too many white ones. I returned to the alphabet exercise, stopping at J, annoyed by the letter J because so few words start with it. Grief is a strange animal. It had me angry with the letter J.
The server came to ask me if everything was okay, then, awkwardly, quickly backed away because I was crying. I knew she was referencing my food, not my frame of mind, but I could sense her uneasiness about what she had just asked me. Is everything Ok? People crying, even silently, are scary. I couldn’t blame her as I would have done the same thing. I’m a tough customer these days. After wiping the tears and composing myself, I asked her for the check without making eye contact. She kindly asked if I was a local, and I kindly responded, no. When she set down the check, she told me to have a safe journey, to which I smiled and said, “Thank you.” My server is afraid of me. I’m also afraid of myself.
After five days of intense therapy, very little of it involving talk therapy, I had been ripped open and exposed to the elements. I probably should not have been out in public. My soul has gone through an excavation, as I picked through the layers of sadness and grief. I’m terribly vulnerable. It feels like I’ve had open-heart surgery and I’m walking home from the hospital. That doesn’t seem like a good idea on any front.
I left my server an inappropriately large tip. Maybe she’ll understand I meant well, but walking home from open-heart surgery is a difficult journey, even more so in a medical boot. If neighboring tables didn’t see the tears, they for sure noticed the boot, as, regardless of how carefully I step, it makes an awkward clumping noise.
As I was exiting the restaurant patio, I made eye contact with the man I had seen earlier, who was also wearing a boot, but his boot, on his right foot, extended to his knee. Mine only goes to several inches above my ankle. We looked at each other and smiled. He said, “Looks like you’re getting around fine despite the boot, huh?” To which I answered, “Well, at least my boot doesn’t go to my knee like yours!” He smiled, and I walked away thinking that my point of gratitude this evening was that my boot didn’t go to my knee.
It feels like bottom feeding for positives, but I’ll take it, with both arms outstretched.