Peter

His apartment is the most beautiful and strange thing I have ever seen in my life. It is on the second floor in an old building in Market and Octavia Street. At the door there is an old colorful slinky hanging down jumping and moving with the wind. You have to move it, and move yourself in order to enter the house. When you walk through the door, or I better say the threshold, you find yourself amidst a unique world of colors, shapes and sounds. The place smells like herbs, spices and books and it is a little space divided in three areas and with almost no furniture. The whole space is full with metal artifacts shaped in many different ways and styles that hang on every wall. One is made by a metal chain and carries a heavy metal figure in the middle and then keeps falling with a different type of chain to the bottom of the floor. Another piece is lighter but still has this worn out color that you can see as metal grows old, it is a combination of smaller and larger figures that he has found on the street and that together made a peculiar perfect sense. There is also a curtain of small metal threads, a big pendulum, some bronze plates hanging on the walls, a fishing net that is also part of the ceiling and more chains and metallic shapes that for now inhabit the world with the only purpose of helping Peter find new order and harmony into his creations, into his universe.

When the door opened I heard the sound. I felt the whole place shimmering with sound; the sound of the city and all the metallic configurations playing with the wind and my movements. In the “rooms” there were old books, written pages, little cards with drawings, some CD’s, a little disc player, rice, an electric stove, a beautiful gray teapot, herbal teas and some spices, all arranged in a contained space that reflects dignity, time and a life story. I felt in a different dimension, entering a different world, I felt inside Peter’s mind and heart. He was his place and the place was him.

I could feel myself sensing, tasting the beauty with surprise and curiosity all over. He saw me see, he witnessed my immersion into the space, he told me to go further and look forward, to go to the end of the room. There was a small sink and a bronzed plate that he uses as a mirror and all around more chains and circles, squares and metal creations. He asked me to blow and blow hard to the bronze “mirror” where my face looked all distorted; I did, and the whole place enlightened with the sound of all things touching one another. I smiled and he smiled. He made tea and we sat on the floor of the bigger room, I ask him why he did not have furniture, not even a bed. He did not need one. He has a sleeping bag that he uses as a chair to read in the daytime and to sleep at night.

Before leaving his place for our astrology class I checked his chakras with the pendulum. His long figure on the floor, his smile and my amazement of how wide the pendulum circled around his heart chakra was the last image I took before we went back to the San Francisco setting sun.

We met when I ask him about his glasses, they were old and carry a story behind them. I love things with stories; I love people with stories to tell. Soon we discovered that in spite of our character, context or age differences we had many things in common.

Unexpectedly, Peter found his way into my life. He knows everything, has read everything and with his curiosity and complexity of being, we talk for hours of every imaginable topic.

Last time I was with Peter I met him at 8 in my house. We decided to go for a walk. The moon was almost full; the streets were quiet and my mind quiet, still and clear. He told me that his father died that day ten years ago. He was somewhat sad and melancholic. He remembered his father with fondness; “He was a very nice man,” he told me. His father lived almost all his life with his wife and his mother-in-law. Peter thinks that was the reason why his parents almost never argued. Peter doesn’t want or ever wanted to have kids or a partner. He is happy and has found a way of life that allows him to enjoy his time thinking, reading and talking with other people.

His curiosity is the size of the earth, and sometimes even the universe. He is light hearted and loves to laugh and make little jokes. His father was a simple man who drank coffee and ate the breakfast his mother-in-law cooked for him in the mornings before going to work. He was a typewriter engineer who lived in Germany for a year. Peter also remembers living in Germany for a year. His family has Greek origins but they did not talk much about their past.

That night walking with Peter, feeling the cold air and looking at the clear sky, we both had the experience of feeling ourselves carrying a great lineage of beings from the past in our backs. We laughed at that point; we knew that we were serious about it, and wondered how far we would have to go to find a common relative. We thought that may be far away, but what is far for two people that love language and love to play with the world and its ideas? Far can be anything when you allow yourself to imagine that the moon was once part of the earth. We were happy thinking that we were relatives; we are all distant relatives anyway.

Without agenda we ended up heading to the Marina District of San Francisco. We got to a point in the city were the buildings could be seen as a Painting and the sound of the ocean was becoming present.

We decided to go to the Wave Organ, an organ made of stones that amplifies the sounds of the sea when there are high tides. A beautiful place made by human who value spaces in which people like me and Peter could delight and wonder about the stars, the moon and our lives. We had our moment there: a moment of peace and surrender, a moment of complicity and aliveness.

On our way back, walking beside the stowed boats and their sounds, we saw the most mysterious bird. Because he was acting so stealthy, he looked almost elegant and very enigmatic. He was big, had long thin legs and a pair of gray wings that surround its body in a magical way. He was looking at us with the most penetrating gaze. We stayed there and stared at him for a while; he was the most captivating creature. After catching a fish with his long beak he opened his huge wings and flew away. We were so happy.

Peter believed that the bird must have been his father visiting him, I agreed completely. Our way back was silent. We took the bus back. We arrived at my door and hugged each other profoundly; it was very clear that both of us believe in magic.

San Francisco, California 2015