The Plate

I put the plate on the dining room table. There was nobody else around, so I was going to eat alone. I often did that, ate alone. Morning, noon, night. Except I didn’t often sit at the dining room table, for what, I always told myself. A person alone can eat standing up at the kitchen counter or lounging on the sofa or reclining in bed. Eating just happens, and we pay little attention to it. The place we sit, or if we stand instead, is of little importance.

On this occasion, however, I had chosen the big table over the coffee tables in other rooms, even over the desk in my bedroom. I needed space for some reason, and the plate, future recipient of a meal, went into the center of that open area I saw as a table, but one that was really located in my mind, since my table wasn’t all that big. Six people eating at the same time would be really crowded, and I couldn’t recall ever having five guests over. However, linking table and mind plus plate was another concept altogether.

Once the plate was on the table, I looked at it. As I’d anticipated, it was empty. I knew the symbolism of the empty plate, and you may know it also: there’s the sense of loss and emptiness versus the sense of a future to be forged. To be honest, I hadn’t dealt with empty plates much, and frequently ignored plates altogether, throwing the bread for a sandwich on a paper napkin, filling the slices with something, then scurrying off to my bedroom. That also saved dirtying silverware. Sandwiches keep things simple.

This time it was different. I had put the empty plate at the head of the table and had started looking into items from the refrigerator that might be combined in a way that would constitute a meal. After removing a few items from the fridge, I returned to the empty plate as if needing to measure its diameter, which wasn’t at all necessary. I discovered the plate was full of something, of things, and was puzzled. Not frightened, confused, and a little intrigued. After all, nothing or nobody had entered the house, and ghosts did not exist, so I assumed there was a logical explanation.

A closer examination revealed what was on the plate, but understanding how it got there was not easy. Nor was it easy to define exactly what things were there. Even now I am not entirely certain what lay on the beige saltware circle, but can try to provide some description:

From a certain angle, it looked like large squares of mica, which in turn resemble holographs. You know, the images that stalk us and can’t be pinned down. I don’t know how they work, those holographs, but they’re too slippery for my taste and make uneasy. Their shapeshifting disturbs my neurodivergent brain. These squares shimmered a bit, providing glimpses of images that were reminiscent of trip after trip, museum after museum, meal after meal eaten on a terrace in Toulouse or Cyprus or Warsaw. Some squares were just shards of light, sheets of rain, or soft, soggy snow on the streets of Bordeaux in December. A few were like fragments of fire that could have been brilliant sunsets in a village of the province of Pontevedra or perhaps lance-like flames in Arzúa the night of summer solstice. Cacharelas, they’re called, and each burning has its own style. The flakes on my plate came from more than one fire, all similar yet all distinct. I could distinguish one from another, and for the most part knew the years.

Some of the images, all more or less square although not perfectly square, seemed to hum or produce some sort of music; oddly enough, the melodies didn’t create a cacophony and my ears were able to listen selectively, one bit at a time. I could focus on a brilliant Portuguese fado by Maritza or an Andean quena (flute), and there were many tunes, yet they were less compelling than the bits of Romanesque architecture or the scenes of open air markets.

The description of the very full plate would have to include the food and drink acquired along the way, as the years passed. Those portions represent some of the stronger memories - for all the little squares were little more than things I once knew, saw, did, consumed, said, and the like. They all fit on the plate somehow, but they did not destroy one another, despite the considerable overlapping. I cannot understand even now how that rummage sale of items managed to juggle itself on the ceramic circle, but everything fit and nothing was damaged by sliding in and out of position, like the scales on an enormous fish, or the covering on the white flying animal in the famous children’s fantasy film. The NeverEnding Story, was it called? Was the animal a luck dragon? Was his name Falkor?

But enough digressing. Clearly, the original plate, once empty, had become wildly populated and, I suspect, more items could have been added. My own never-ending story, minus the flying white beast. I was suddenly very full, my appetite gone, and I had to get up from the table. Maybe a glass of water would help. I needed to ruminate on what to do with the plate, which was full yet felt empty. The empty part terrified me, but the cup runneth over state was becoming overwhelming.

I turned my back on all that had been set before me, realizing it was not really there to be consumed; not any longer. When I turned away from the sink, my eyes returned to the plate. I was afraid to find square after little square, like photos people used to take, get developed, put in albums, everything overflowing and obscuring the blankness of my present, confusing me, tripping me up.

For that was the real plate before me: a present like a blank page, the past having been lived, consumed, used up, and now little more than a collection of something. I had to do something. It was either do or die. And I wasn’t ready to die.

I did react at last. The pieces of past went gently into a tin container that had once held turrón from Valencia. The vintage painted metal box was a fitting refuge for what had been the most delectable things in my entire life, but those things meant starvation now. With them before me, I was unable to satisfy something else, something I couldn’t identify, couldn’t see, smell, hear, touch. I can’t say how long the confusion lasted, but then a possible solution came to me. The plate was empty and contemplating me.

I began to select, and slowly, what I wanted on my plate and how much I wanted on it. I chose a few things that came to rest within the blank circle before me, but they were all located in the future. There comes a point in life where planning seems futile because we have so little time remaining. The usual hopes and dreams are over and done with. However, I can find a few items - fewer is better - that might ultimately matter.

One is making time for the things, people, and animals I love the most. That’s easy enough. Harder, but still good, is walking, but only if it is not boring. You see, in Santiago it’s never boring, but where I live now it’s dull, very dull. Maybe deeper in the woods it would be more worthwhile. I’m adding a few book titles that I must read before I die, and am also considering rereading a few favorites. Oh, and writing. I love to write, longhand, fountain pen, scribe-like. With my beloved rainbow of inks.

As I do this, I’m resisting the temptation to pile a lot of things onto the plate that no longer need to be there. Chaos can hurt, so I slow down, tell myself that despite time being short, there’s no rush. Do I want to travel widely like I did before? Maybe leave a couple of blank areas for new trips. I want to visit the Illa de San Simón, for example. I’d like to return to Lourvão and Cordes-sur-ciel. I want… and this wanting drags me to the same things but I no longer have enough time, money, health, or company to do them.

Mostly, I think, I want to put things in order on the plate, but want to leave room for good unexpected things. One of these is a secret, but I’ve added it to the new collection, much smaller and calmer. Like the childhood names my father gave me (there were two), I cannot say the secret aloud. Rigoberta Menchú never could reveal her secret name, and I will never tell, not really, what I’d love to have on this second experience with the plate. I will write it into reality, perhaps, then place it on the plate/brain and live it, slowly, deliberately, the best way I can, until the lasr breath I take.