I sit in a large cafe in Rochester’s East End neighborhood. I’ve never been here before. It’s lunchtime, and the extensive food menu seems to be driving business more than coffee. My guess—there are as many people eating all-day breakfast sandwiches as there are folks sipping lattes.
I’ve got a well-lighted spot in a back corner. My wooden table is sturdy, but the carpeted floor is rickety. Every time someone walks past, my table hops one inch skyward when their foot mashes a hidden warped board.
This isn’t where I first sat myself down. I moved here after I could no longer bear a spot in the direct sun as it blazed through ceiling-high front windows. The glare on my laptop was exacerbating my already challenged efforts to get anything written. But even after scoring a more suitable seat, I’m still stuck. My creative efforts have been thwarted, as they always are upon my arrival in town, by my practical reasons for coming here in the first place.
When I visit Rochester, I fall into look-after-mom mode. Doing anything else, like writing or reading or businessey stuff or whatever, gets roadblocked. This morning the struggle is real—I’ve visited no less than four different coffee shops hoping the vibe of each might catalyze a shift from caretaker to creative for a brief couple hours. But every new setting only highlights my growing frustration.
After composing, then deleting, a half dozen essays, I throw in the towel. I let go of what I thought I wanted to explore—simplifying—and instead write about what’s happening at this very moment.
There’s a family to my left who’s discussing their high schooler’s collegiate pathway. The mom wears a Rutgers ballcap as she makes calls to admissions offices on speaker. There’s a job interview in process at the table across from me. At first I thought it was a first date—the two people seemed skittish—but I was clued in when one person pulled out an official looking notepad and leaned in, making the other’s body turn rigid.
At an adjacent high table, a man postures at his computer. A very large muffin sits before him in the center of a dinner plate. My guess—he ordered the dessert in a moment of weakness. Now he types away and gives the treat an occasional side eye, which delays his inevitable responsibility (and burning desire) to indulge. I am touched by the scene’s vulnerability—by the social contradictions of this grown ass man with a big ass muffin. Watching him quietly contort validates my own restraint as I passed on the cheese danish.
Out the window to my right is sidewalk flower garden, maybe three feet square. Purple and yellow dahlias are abuzz with pollinators, and clover dots the box between each blooming plant. Someone obviously cares for this tiny urban space—it’s bed is free of the debris that usually litters the streets and gutters.
I don’t even know if these are actually dahlias, but you get the idea
A dreadlocked man sits at a long bar facing out the side window. He gets up and walks in my direction. He stops on the wonky board near my table, jolting my chair like a speed bump. He hands me a drawing and says he’s a struggling graphic artist. “I drew you,” he says. He tells me if I ever need a design or branding or logos I should call his number on the back of the drawing.
A similar moment happened on a previous visit to Rochester—an artist approached me at a cafe and asked to draw my portrait. While he sketched away, our chat got deep. When he finished he asked for a few bucks. Then he excused himself and put his name on the list for the evening’s open mic event. I didn’t stick around to see what else he could do, but I do recall feeling special for having been singled out.
I take this artist’s paper and examine the image. “This is me?” I say, and I am immediately aware that my tone implies critique. “Yeah,” he says. With a gentle finger he traces the lines shaping his rendering of my trucker hat and eyeglasses.
The man in the drawing has a long, slender face, beady and almost nonexistent eyes, thin-framed round glasses, clean shaven cheeks, and a goatee. I wonder if the actual person in this likeness was perhaps here earlier. Maybe I look enough like that original guy for the artist to give his portrait a second go. I accept the drawing, give the artist five bucks—the only bill I have besides a few ones—and go back to my writing.
The man walks away and I study his work. I maneuver the paper so I might catch it from varied angles and in different light. One perspective brings to life its colors beyond the obvious gray scales. Dirty yellows and pinks clash in the recesses of the nose and brows. Two striking wisps of subtle orange illuminate an iris and tighten the face’s upper lip. Oversized glasses magnify and distort the eye sockets and forehead. It looks like the work of a forensic artist. Like the Unabomber sketch.
The person in the drawing could be me, I suppose. But it conjures up a version of me that ices my blood. It’s the face of me living out my nightmare existence. A life without. Without money, without housing, without friends. A life without a partner, without access to food, without good health. The image captures a version of me living without any obvious purpose. Just a boring ol’ average guy. Nothing special at all. Utterly forgettable. Unseen.
These without things have chased me through my decades. So far I’ve managed to stay a step ahead of them. But lately I’ve been wondering if all this running has been worth it. I don’t think I have it in me to go all out anymore. My legs are tired. My lungs are gassed. And what used to be a clear finish line is no longer as important as it once was.
I set the portrait down and go back to my blank screen. I type out s-i-m-p-l-i-f-y then put my head in my hands as my eyes fill with water. I take a few deep breaths to encourage an emotional tsunami. But it doesn’t come and the moment passes like a weak parade.
As the artist packs up his stuff, I walk over to catch him. I set his drawing on the bar, then ask him what he sees when he draws someone’s face. Is there a feature or landmark that inspires the rest of the sketch? Is there some sort of invisible, energetic resonance that he’s tuned into? Something that lures him in and demands his artistic attention? Then I apologize and press my lips together—my inquiry is coming at him way too fast.
I also realize that I am feeding him words I hope he’ll reflect back. I want him to point to the unique details of the face, my face, around which the rest of me revolves. To name the bits and pieces of me that make me interesting.
I want to know which of my specific details inspired him to draw me and not someone else. Was it the glint in my soft hazel eyes? The emerald hue my grandma used to tell me was absolutely not green, but something better than green. Or was it my epicanthic folds that hint to my Scandinavian roots? Or perhaps it was my aura? Ethereal vestiges of my attempt to balance creativity and caretaking. Ripples of my unconscious effort to live small. To love selflessly and unconditionally. I greedily await his response.
The artist thinks for a minute, looks out the window as a breeze catches a discarded grocery bag and glides it beneath a parked car. He shakes his head and says that everyone has at least one defining feature. “I find that, then everything else just falls into place,” he says.
He then pulls a stumpy charcoal crayon from his pocket and adds a few final touches to the drawing. He scribbles a bit on one of the eyes and sharpens the shape of the cheeks and brim. He uses a bare thumb to blend a couple dark spots, then hands the work to me for the second time.
I return to my seat and once again examine the drawing. His additions don’t make it look any more like me than it did before. I want to ask the people near me, “What do you think? Do you see a resemblance?” But I am afraid they’ll say yes, so I flip the portrait upside down.
The artist stops to admire the outside flowers just as the wind makes their stems dance. He laughs, as if delighted by this tiny exchange. As he wanders out of sight, I wonder if I am actually afraid of being without. Because if I am, I needn’t be. After all, I’m pretty resourceful and self sufficient. But also privileged, connected, well-resourced, and loved. Odds are I’ll be just fine.
So what then am I afraid of? Because something is in the way of me finding a deeper sense of peace.
I flip over the drawing and change my perspective. Rather than note what I don’t like about it—I’ve always hated goatees, for example—I instead ask, What about it can I love? A fresh array of attributes comes to mind.
In the artist’s sketch I suddenly see curiosity, ardor, and reverence. I see appreciation, concerted effort, and attention to detail. I see willingness. A tenderness. I see presence. I also notice that the drawing reflects a similar golden tone as the flowers outside.
I close my laptop and ask Rutgers mom if she minds watching my stuff for a minute. Then I bring the drawing outside and compare its yellows to that of the the dahlias. It’s the same. Which makes me burst out laughing.
Nice Tom. I like this. And yes, definitely Unabomber.