I witnessed a little scene after going to the Post Office, near our building at the corner of Market and Main Streets in the city, that I would like to tell you about

June 21, 1997

Love in the Atruim

I witnessed a little scene after going to the Post Office, near our building in "The City" (as San Franciscans fondly refer to our town) that I would like to tell you about.

The nearest Post Office to my job is a place called the Rincon annex. It used to be the primary mail distribution facility to the downtown "financial" district. It was a huge warehouse like operation. In the part of the building where the public transacted their business there are murals depicting the history of California, that were painted by a local artist during the economic depression of the 1920's.

After the new mail facility was built in an area across the "Lefty O'Doul" Bridge, way out on Third Street, out by Hunter's Point, the Postal Service sold the Rincon property. It was quickly slated for demolition and a new office building would be constructed on the site. In that the building was a historical landmark, there was a public outcry to save the structure and it's murals.

The people won. The perimeter of the building's "art deco" facade was retained along with the murals on the walls in the lobby, adjacent to the north entrance on Mission Street. An office complex was built in the center where the large warehouse had been. The column of offices surround an empty core that rises to a height of about eight stories. The glass enclosed roof creates an atrium, an interior courtyard, that is bathed in sunshine.

Directly below the glass ceiling is another sheet of transparent material that has holes drilled in it. Through these holes flows a constant stream of water that falls the eighty feet or so creating the effect of rain dropping to the floor in the center of the courtyard. The interior of the ground floor of the atrium is lined with shops and small restaurants that are very popular with the people who work in the district.

It is here that I decided to kill the last half hour or so before I went to work. I went to a pizza place and got a slice of the Sicilian-style mushroom pie and a root beer. I proceeded to one of the tables in the atrium and took a seat. This is a great place for people watching and I felt like I needed a little mindless entertainment while I ate my lunch.

Across the garden courtyard from the pizza place is a Korean restaurant that serves bowls of rice with meat, or noodles and soup, during lunch. As I took the first bite of my pizza, I noticed a young Korean couple sitting at a table, facing each other, over a couple of bowls, where there are many tables on an elevated platform that breaks up the contour of the floor.

They looked like the typical twenty-something, cosmopolitan couple, dressed in their pseudo-chic casual attire. He, in his golf shirt and wind breaker, cotton trousers and a pair of fashionable leather sandals, over white crew socks and she, in a white t-shirt with the collar turned up, a pair of tailor cut Levi's and white and teal Nikes that had never seen the muddy side of a jogging trail.

His short cropped, flat top haircut mirrored the angles of his muscular jaw, with the accountant-like, wire framed glasses taking the edge off of his silhouette. Her shoulder length hair falling straighter than the rain from the ceiling and the bangs across her forehead creating a frame for a face right off the cover of a fashion magazine. Her limbs were the wisp of a willow that belied her inner strength.

They weren't eating. The look on their faces indicated to me that they were discussing something serious. His eyes cast down to the table and he reached for her hand. As he fondled her fingers he spoke in low tones. A look of horror passed over her face as she caught the meaning of what he was saying. She reeled away. Her hand flew from his in a wide arc. She connected with the side of his face. The accountant's glasses leapt from the bridge of his nose and slid across the floor. Those high cheek bones blushed with a scarlet welt.

He did not react. He remained seated. When he had finally mustered the courage to look her in the face it was too late. She had dropped back into her seat after the blow and was sobbing into the comfort of her forearms, blind to the rest of the world. He appeared to offer some words of condolence but they were drowned out by her tears.

He rose from his chair and reached over to pat her shoulder. The last act of compassion for his former lover. To her, his touch was that of a leper and she shook it off with appropriate disdain. He appeared to be looking for a way to make the event less painful and there was none. His feelings of guilt pushed his feet toward the door. His spectacles remained on the floor where they were splattered by the artificial downpour. He was gone.

After a time, the girl peeked over her soggy arm to make sure he had left. She slowly lifted her head and a sense of pride seemed to return. She held her head high as she blotted away the tears with a paper napkin. The sight of the thin gold band on the delicate, second to the smallest, finger of her left hand grabbed hold of her. She stared at it for a moment and then, with a sense of regret, she drew it over the knuckle and past the rose colored, manicured nail and it was off. She put it in her purse.

She seemed to notice something while she had the hand bag open. She reached in again and pulled out her organizer. As she flipped though the pages she took on the appearance of someone who was possessed by a new sense of determination. When she came to the spot she was looking for she removed the pen that was clipped to the binding and began to eliminate the bastard from her life. Page after page, vicious strokes scratched out the lines that had foretold their future together.

When she had finished the purge, with a sniffle she replaced the calendar and withdrew a cell phone from her pocketbook. She looked at the phone and took a deep breath. Her eyes began to well up, but, an involuntary shudder brought her back. She wiped at her eyes with the crumpled, worried napkin and took a sip of water from the paper cup that was enblazened with the Pepsi logo. She took another deep, cleansing breath and punched in the speed dial combination on the phone. She spoke briefly and bitterly, but then, a giggle burst from her cheeks. Someone had told her something amusing and it was her first step toward recovery. Good for her, I thought.

She put the phone away and rose from her seat. She straightened the front of her jeans and then, self consciously, looked around. The room had suddenly found some manners and no one looked in her direction. With a flick of the wrist she batted the hair away from her shoulder and replaced it with the strap of her purse. She walked purposefully toward the exit, the street and her new life.

The dictionary defines love as "a deep and tender feeling of affection and devotion, a very great fondness". It doesn't say anything about the spectrum of emotions that can come from one persons feelings for another. I have read that the Chinese don't have a word for love, in the western sense, in their vocabulary. Only the barbarians from the west could be so arrogant as to try to describe that feeling with a single word.

It really doesn't seem fair that any pain or feelings of anxiety should have to come from that most significant of emotions of the human experience. I can only imagine that at some point the young couple that I had watched had been very happy together. That they had been a source of joy for one another. How does that wonderful feeling get dragged through the mud? Why would anyone throw it away after having had it? These rhetorical questions may have revealed a naivete in my thought process. I just can't help but think there must be a better way.