Went to the newly opened Cabo Cantina on Hollywood Boulevard. I have no idea where it came from or when either. It's crazy, because it's only a few blocks from my place and it seems like it just popped up out of the blue. But it triggered something in me when I spotted it. I used to go to the one on Sunset Boulevard with my sweetest of LA friends. Fond memories of that time, back when we all lived here, young and naive and didn't quite realize what life was going to bring. Now we're all dispersed around the country, each taking our own varied paths through this world. A little more battered and bruised, a lot wiser.
So, this new Cabo, I had to check it out. It's interesting and great because it seems to be an older crowd, I mean like late 20s early 30s, like me crowd. I swear someone was even sitting by himself reading a newspaper. So it's not like rowdy college spring break in Cancun style at all. Just a good place where locals go to get out, making Hollywood feel ever more like a town and less like a tourist casserole.
Anyway, my friend Bethany and I, we went the other night. We got the varietal appetizer. A medley of five different dips with chips…yummy. And then, when I ordered my margarita, things got complicated. It was happy hour, so 2 for 1, and who knows how long we were going to dwell there. Anyway, I order a margarita and the waitress gives me the option of the four small margaritas she apparently foresaw me having when all was said and done, or one big one. The big one being less than the four, price-wise, but equal in volume. And it got me thinking way more than ordering a margarita should.
I pondered forever and after deliberation and getting up and down half-way out of the booth to change my order several times and laughing and trying to figure out why it was so difficult to figure it out, I finally decided on the one big one, which dear Bethany already knew I would regret. God, she knows me! So I get my one big margarita and was already bummed because I realized I love having a lot of small things over one big. I don't really care about the better deal. I mean, I enjoyed it, but it's just so much more fun for me to have a multitude. And to not be stuck with one choice, but to be able to decide as I go.
On a deeper level, I guess it's just how I am with life in general. I always want the variety. I always want to see the small pieces. The little things, the moments, they just make so much more sense.
The details, now those I find forever fascinating. Those are easy. The theme, however, the big one, that's what most boggles me. When I begin wondering what it's all about, durrr... there I get muddled. I mean, sometimes, sometimes, just for brief fleeting flashes, I get it. Clarity for about five seconds, but then it's lost.
So I suppose that's why I revel in the details and savor each step. Because when I get stuck contemplating the plot too much, if I settle into it before I can shake myself out, I do get depressed. Suddenly I look around and nothing makes sense. The metaphorical rainbows and butterflies that are usually surrounding me, the sunshine that I try and keep in the foreground, it all disappears and it is grey grey grey.
And the only thing I can do when that happens is to let it be and try and revel in that place as well. To be quiet and let myself cry and give myself liberty to not understand anything at all. And when I do that, there is something gentle and beautiful and hushed in the deep confusion. There is something so real about that sadness. And I know now, because, god, I've been me for long enough, I know it will pass eventually, and that I will be uplifted again.
In any case, we did well with the appetizer. And hooray, a Cabo Cantina in this Hollywood village of mine!
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