A Golden Path (Part 1)

I remember.

More than 12 ago outside of Bryan Texas, Tom and I came to a small "hole in the wall" diner for lunch just off highway 6. In the thin gray skies of an occasionally overcast fall day, we had passed by our lunch time destination the first time without noticing it due to car ride conversation.

The parking lot was east Texas gravel, like dirty limestone. It was rough to drive on and unpleasant to walk on. Tom had found the address for the diner in some listing of lunch time locations we hadn't been to before. As was our lunch time tradition then, we choose it mostly at random.

The outside of the diner was unremarkable and, alone, I would have never be interested in trying this place for lunch.

Inside, the decor was western. The wooden furniture was dark and worn smooth with use. The atmosphere was dimly lite even in the light of an afternoon sun. The food on the buffet was acceptable but expensive and not good enough to merit returning.

We sat next the window where we could see more clearly, carefully selecting from our plates what we might and shouldn't eat. I wondered at the nature of a left eye seeing a darkened room while the right could see the briefly appearing sun through the windows. I had gotten migraines from color and light variations in the past and wanted to be mindful of this now.

Tom and I ate, split between the dim and the bright of the lunch time table. The conversation was enjoyable and engaging for me though I have long since forgotten what technical discussion we were having. I felt a bit more alert than usual, like something was finally working properly in my head. As discussion continued, the sun shown through the clouds outside, flowed through the window and strengthened the contrasts of light and dark. I felt it again, that very rare feeling.

I stopped talking and eating for a few minutes and just "felt". With increasing intensity, my mind churned over ideas of everything, of all things. Concepts and abstractions flowed through me like a stream, then joined by other streams of ideas, cascading into new ideas. In a double vision the diner outside and the dazzling stimulus within, I felt elated and excited as concepts seemed to fit together, even if I wasn't consciously aware of their symbolic meanings or values to reality. Like a dance of gold, yellow, white and blue at the edge of my awareness, I felt a doorway in my mind straining to open. And I, like a child, eagerly awaited, certain that some wondrous gift of thoughts and knowledge would rush upon me. The dance continued and I dizzy within it. I felt fully alive and fully awake from within. Wanted to bathe in these ideas, to have them wash over me repeatedly until I understood everything.

While I had long ago become accustomed to silence in the company of friends, Tom became uncomfortable, shifting on the bench seating across the table. I wanted to stay in this moment for it felt fragile.

From my haze of possibilities, I asked Tom, "Have you ever had the feeling that if you thought the right thought, at just the right moment, everything would make sense to you?" He replied he didn't know this feeling. "I'm having that feeling right now," I spoke softly, distantly.

I wanted to stay in this place and wait for the doorway to spring open; to discover these hidden thoughts, no matter how long it took. But I staying in it only for a few moments more. Tom seemed increasingly uncomfortable as he didn't know what I was experiencing. As I had few friends at the time, I worried that I might damage another valuable friendship by being too "odd" again. Worry and fear were enough to keep the doorway from opening; golden thoughts faded like a burst bubble in shadow. In seconds, that rare clarity was lost.

I have not had the feeling of golden, shimmering thoughts since.