 Nostalgia |
AfricaAntarcticaAsiaCentral America CaribbeanEuropeMiddle EastNorth AmericaOceaniaSouth AmericaOceans and Seas
...
- It stopped me dead in my tracks...
What is that song??.. I know that song.
I was wandering down a side street in the rare evening drizzle - and suddenly stopped here, outside this little obscure Argentine Pub..
The music was from where I come from, and yet there is something about.. Ahh yes, thatīs it!
Suddenly I am thrown back five years and more than 10 000 miles and I am standing outside a little Pub in the Queen Charlotte Islands.
It would be my first friday night shift and I am standing in the evening drizzle. Standing and listening to the live band inside the bar, the shouts from the drunken and rowdy, predominantly Haida, people inside - pool balls clanging together and raucous laughter..
I am standing outside in order to take a moment to gather my courage.
This place is rumored to be crazy on friday nights.
I had landed the bartending job by mere chance, walking in at just the right moment.
"Have you ever bartended before?"
"Well no.. but itīs not rocket-science - Iīll learn."
"Start next week."
It would be awhile yet before they realize that I was just barely out of my 19th birthday and hardly spent much time drinking in bars, much less working in them.
What I would have done without that chance day, I really donīt know.. At this point the job was vital to my survival. I am down to $3.32 in my bank account, but theyīd given me a tab at the bar (which included the bistro upstairs), and I had found a little 20x8 foot trailer on the outskirts of town to set my backpack down and rest my head... I would be okay.
And as I stood in the night outside that Pub (the first day of what would take me over an entire year to walk away from before heading off to the Prarries), gathering my courage for what I would later describe as the mental debauchery that is bartending - the band started a new song..
"See the stone set in your eyes.. feel the thorn twist in your side.."
On this night in Argentina, instead of smiling and walking inside as I did then, I smiled and stuffed my hands in my pockets - shuffling along to the nostalgic sound of another place and another time.
Joseph N Sieben
2 Comments - Add Public Comment or Send Private Message
June 29th 2006 - los dos portenos:
It is strange the way things like that happen from time to time here. At times I feel so far removed from my old life and then there are moments were I feel as though I have fallen through some type of worm hole. I walked into a cafe the other day and it smelled exactly the way my best friends kitchen smelled when I would go over there after school as a kid. Or I could have sworn that one of the beaches/lakes in Patagonia I went to had been molded after the lake I went to with my grandfather to fish.
It sure is.
It is strange and slightly disorienting and welcome all at once.
A nice way to have memories suddenly thrust upon you without warning - especially for moments such as lakeside fishing with your grandfather, I would think.
It happened to me again the other day as I walked past a construction site, and like the smell of your cafe it was the smell of sawdust and fresh cut wood that momentarily set me back a few steps in the past.
All Comments
Copyright notice.
The text and photos of this article remain the copyright of the Author (Joseph Sieben). Under no circumstances should the photos or text be used without the express written permission of the Author (Joseph Sieben). If you wish to use or publish photos or text from this article - please
Contact Joseph Sieben.