I don't know where that comes from. And I don't wonder either. I just do what I need to do.
I don't have much. Just a small little diner in Nebraska.
Early evenings are enchanting here. Outside, in my backyard, windflowers grow. Right in the middle of this sleepy little town. The bittersweet has climbed the walls, picking its way deliberately and lovingly covering the stones with such infinite care. Low prairie wild rose bushes frame the prairie beyond.
The sun catches the green in cunning, diffused light at around half past four, and the colours in the sky meet the distant horizon in a master artist's montage of hues. Some of the green glistens like morning dew, and some just lies in dappled shade. The contrast is a brush-stroke of heaven. I have spent hours as a boy, picking my way through the green and many more as a man, feeling the sun warm the evening and the gentle wind touch my windflowers.
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Kearney comes in almost every other evening. Sits in his customary corner till about half past after dark. He never speaks unless he is spoken to. He isn't young, but he's no fogy. He's just getting a bit heavy these days. Jeans, t-shirts and a flotilla of jackets which he alternates every day.
It's always the same - the blue plate and the coffee. Sometimes black. I wonder who he goes to, does he go to an animal ? A goldfish, perhaps? Or a human being who might well pass for one !!!
He is amiable, if you can call taciturn amiable.
Today he was early. And more melancholy than usual. He also sat at the bar stool and actually asked for the usual. I studied his eyes. No emotion, just a touch of despair (that's new!!!).
He sat at the bar stool, looking at the counter.
I thought it wise to talk. Usually there are no words, but today, I spoke.
"Tough day?" Says I.
"Tough week", he says.
"Can I get some coffee?" he says. (This is already more than has ever been said between us, I think to myself.)
Wordlessly, I dish out a clean cup and a saucer and fill the cup with hot coffee. I turned to look at Emily, and she knew I was asking for the blue plate for him.
Coffee in hand, he padded off to his usual corner. There seemed to be a sense of despair, and hesitancy, in his movements. I know taciturn, I know solitary, and I know lonely, from this guy. But I hadn't known despair - not until now.
Emily had the blue plate in no time, and I, for some reason, decided to take it to him. I went further and sat down opposite him. This was already nowhere land...... and almost ANYTHING I could have said would have been nothing more than a shot in the dark here. This one had clearly drifted many a mile off shore and was out on the deep blue alone.
"Is something the matter?" I heard myself saying. And I waited.
Nothing.
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The magic hour arrived.
I call 5 the magic hour. For about a half hour, someone in heaven reaches out and touches the tip of land where my diner stands. Nobody who comes here really knows this but me. The light, allround, is nothing but soft, dappled and dewy-fresh. There is just enough of a nip on the wind to bring out a few jackets. Everything merely beautiful becomes positively enchanting.
It is a time for new beginnings, and to leave the defeat of the day behind. To think..... about starting again with hope.
Then I saw Kearney in the back yard, face to the wind and ambling slowly up and down. A planet might as well leave its orbit...... how had he managed to find this? No one's been in that backyard but me and Emily. It's easy enough to go to, just walk around back, but no one'd ever actually done that....
I walked out to him. And suddenly, we spoke.
"This is beautiful", he said. I said nothing.
He had been looking at this really incredible sight - the diffused evening sunlight, dramatically meeting the distant horizon. The prairie was as flat as they come - dappled green where the sunlight caught it. I'd seen this many times....and now, Kearney saw it. I had an insistent feeling he had caught it - even though he hadn't actually said so.
"How long have you been here near this prairie?" he asked.
"My dad started this here.... that's about all I know", says I.
"Ever walked out on the prairie?"
"Sometimes - it's as flat as Texas."
"No undulations? not even a little hilly-hill hillock"?
"No."
"Well!"
And then, silence.
"Life isn't", he says.
"Isn't what?"
"Flat as this prairie."
"Hmmm."
"It's full of gorges, canyons, sheer drops and cloudbursts".
(I decided to go mute just about here.)
"If every evening was like this one - and I could come here everyday....."
I waited.
"This is one heck of a place. Look at that prairie - it can absorb anything life can throw at it. And not show even a ripple."
"Thanks for the food and the coffee. And......this." he said, pointing to the prairie. And he smiled.
"The prairie isn't mine...you're welcome to it" I said finally, "but you can come here everyday if you like. It ain't goin' nowhere...."
"Yes it ain't. And neither am I, for awhile." He offered a hand, and I took it. "Thanks", he said.
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We never spoke again, though Kearney came almost everyday after that. He hasn't been in the yard again either.
He seems a new man. He smiles. He brings friends. He hasn't changed the blue plate or the coffee, but I know peace when I see it.
I thought about that conversation many times after that. Kearney had said very little, and I even less. But there had been balm. Something had healed - for Kearney. I never thought once about asking him exactly about what that conversation had been; I thought the wiser of it. But he had known.
Sometimes all it takes is a cup of coffee and a sunset....and some flat green. I wouldn't change the view in my backyard for anything under these heavens.
The prairie is still untouched. "I saw miles and miles of Texas......all those stars up in the sky.....I saw miles and miles of Texas.....gonna stay here till I die." Nothing different about Nebraska there!
My diner is all I have. And the people who come. I'd like to think they come - not just for the food. I'd like to think they come for some really life-giving food. I try to do what I can. I don't believe too much in words, or in food; I believe the place matters more than anything. There certainly is something tremendously healing about places that don't change, that you can always go to no matter what.
The next time you're out on the prairie..... come in. I'll be here, but come and see the prairie, and the sky - see where they meet.
