People of all kinds filter into the restaurant I work. I like to take note of the crowd an Italian eatery with a bar draws on a nightly basis. If half the servers are aspiring actors and the other half are aspiring musicians, who are the people they’re waiting on?

A fair share are actors as well. You can see it in the way they move their arms when they talk. They’re full of expression. They make faces of euphoria when they take a bite of something good. And everybody in the room knows when they bite into something bad.

The others are just as expressive, in their own often-unintended ways.

There are the writers. My favorite, and it should be no surprise to you. They bring laptops and notepads and ask for a corner booth where they can work between small, but many, sips of wine. You can tell when they’ve slipped into reverie or writer’s block when they freeze like marble statues with a glass halfway to their lips. This is usually the time I swing by for conversation. Because I know from experience they’re usually welcome the for distraction.

Then there are the visual creatives. They call themselves filmographers or photographers, but it’s more fun to come up with your own names for things. I call ‘em the lens-masters. Their eyes are always roaming. And sometimes I catch them tilting their heads, trying to look at things from a different, unique angle. While the writers are frozen staring at their computer screens the lens-masters are staring at them through the distortion of their water glass.

And then there are some men and women that step into Max’s and, right off the bat, seem to understand everything about the place. They know the lighting is dim to hide stains on the concrete floor and holes in the leather upholstery. They see the scratches on the table for what they really are: telltale signs of a seven year business with a tumultuous history. They know the server’s smile is, more often then not, a ploy for tips. Later in the meal their curiosity usually gets the better of them and they ask when the busser swings by: “What’s going on in the back of the house tonight?” They ask because they know the real drama happens where the diners can’t see. “Food, fire, and spats.” Most times they grin at my measured answer. All director’s know not to give away the secrets of what happens on-set. When the woman, or man, at their arm starts to ask for specifics the director lightly touches their arm in a gesture that says, That’s all we’ll get.

They’ve got curiosity and poise and a situational-awareness that deserves respect. In fact, I take my earlier words back. I might like directors best.

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Last night was November 1st and the sky turned auburn and the city was quiet…I’ve been here in Los Angeles nine months now and watching that sky from the patio-garden felt more real than anything in a long, long while.

There were people calling for me. Somewhere, silver clattered to the ground. But I just stood there for a second and watched the sky and the noise of the restaurant faded out.

I’ve never seen the sky here that color. It was visible proof that time had passed…and, for the first time in forever, I felt that. I felt the unique possibilities offered by my different, and numbered, days.

I hadn’t felt that brilliant optimism in such a long time I didn’t know if I still could. And feeling it on a cobbled patio while working for $12.50 an hour, feeling it in a situation other people had pitied me for, was a gift of the most unexpected kind.

Some nights

the sky is a surrealist’s clock.

It goes from gold to red to dusk-dark

and it says to anyone watching

Go on. There’s living to be done.

There’s a line in a favorite movie of mine, Tron, where the main characters, a father and son are caught in some mounting trouble. The son finds his father crosslegged on the deck of their flying, zepplin-like ship and when he asks the old man what he’s doing the father replies: “Knocking on the sky…listening to the sound.”

I couldn’t say why, but that line is how I felt the night of November 1st.

Knocking on the sky…listening to the sound. Hmm. Just rolls off the tongue right.

Learning to read time by sundial. Until next time.

— Nomad