2026-09-02
Recently, I was chatting with a friend who had rearranged their furniture for mental health reasons. Our conversation sparked this memory of some emotionally significant furniture moving from 2017.
Years ago, I found myself having a truly rotten day.
I had gotten into a massive and ultimately pointless argument with some performers in our troupe, the water had been unexpectedly turned off in my apartment, and for unrelated reasons there was a jackhammer being used outside.
As my teeth began to rattle, whatever reserves of rationality I possessed utterly failed. I became raving-out-loud angry at my entire day, and stormed out for a walk.
Truthfully it was more of a stomp, and a tactical retreat from the chaos.
About a block outside of jackhammering range was a place called Cindi’s. It was a New York style delicatessen, plucked out of its proper position on the East coast and dropped near my place in Texas like a strange Jewish oasis.
I decided to stomp in that direction, order lunch, and regroup.
To pass the time until food arrived, I played an old clown game. The rules are simple: look around your immediate environment and try to name three truly beautiful things. It’s a terrific mental health exercise, and I play variations of it almost every day.
Unfortunately, on that day in the past, everything seemed awful. My anger had reduced the world to meaningless details. Feeling defeated, I hung my head low. I found myself staring at a nasty scrape in the floor.
After a bit more moping, it finally occurred to me to really look at this mark. To see it, and try to understand why it was there.
Every time this restaurant reorganized the tables to make room for a larger group to sit together, they had to move them across the same exact spot. Like a prayer wheel served with fresh bagels, this simple movement had carved itself into the floor over time.
There must have been birthday parties, weddings, reunions, and meetings which started something interesting. Families came here to grieve together too. Meals after funerals, so no one ate alone. Groups of friends, sitting vigil over each other after traumatic events.
All of those stories, all of that life, were embedded in that scrape. An arcane glyph warding off a demon named “Loneliness In Troubled Times”. Carved into the floor by a simple repeated ritual.
Compared to that sort of conjuring, the grimmest of moods are ephemeral at best. My spirits eventually lifted, and all of the little frustrations eventually got smoothed out.
Through it all, and so many times after, I’ve found myself thinking about that “nasty” scrape in the floor which remains as proof of so much liiving.
A mark which says that we were here, together.