Propinquity, Or What's With This Guy And Vending Machines?

I was wrong.

The rare occasion occurred nearly six months ago; it's taken me this long to process. At a family gathering the word "propinquity" came up (not that our family sits around with brandy snifters and snuff boxes discussing Kierkegaard's more obtuse points or comparing each other's neurasthenia, but somehow the word came up). Anyway, the discussion devolved into my mother and I disagreeing on the meaning of the word. To make the painful story short, she was correct; the word means proximity or nearness. Despite my English degree, four+ years of Latin, and years toiling in the trenches with such Rabelaisian tomes as The Joy of Vocabulary and Enriching One's Vocabulary, I had contended that the word meant an inclination. I see now how I made the (I would contend) easily made mistake of confusing propinquity with propensity and proclivity; nevertheless, that does not excuse me. Mother, once again, knew best and for nearly six months I've stood chastised.

But though I stand chastised, I recline mulling, musing upon the various forces exerted by propinquity in our lives, or at least my life. All the so near and yet so far away moments and experiences, the "Sliding Door"/"Road Not Taken" oh so close moments that might have completely or minutely changed my life in some significant way. The intriguing stranger never engaged, the opportunity or offer never taken up, the words the occasion called for never expressed. Of course there is the opposite, the things done or said that might not have been, but it's always the actions not performed that tantalize the most. Propinquity, that nearness or proximity, doesn't always mean realization or fruition. For years I went to a dumpy concert venue, but when I ended up moving literally just down the street, within walking distance of the place, I went exactly once in six years (great Ass Ponys show, by the way; R.I.P. Ass Ponys). I think of the people I worked with or among for years, people who were a regular part of my daily existence, who then were never seen or heard from again and I realize I never really got to know them. Propinquity, so close and yet so far away. Just another humdrum conundrum of life. And yet.

Vending machines. My uber vending machine experience has been exhaustively chronicled elsewhere, but there's another vending machine moment (or fifteen minutes) that's a bit thornier in my history, one that very nearly plagues me, and when I contemplate the notion of propinquity, as I've been doing in my chastisement of the last nearly six months, it sits like a hefty totem on my consciousness. It is the metaphor for me for all the perplexities of propinquity in my life.

Nearly twenty-five years ago I backpacked around the U.K. for a month with my good friend Mike. Mike had been valedictorian, so he was the Baedeker for our excursion. He assiduously consulted a more-dog-eared-by-the-hour Let's Go United Kingdom and would periodically map out our next couple of days. "Sounds good to me," I'd say, hunker down with my clutch of the British tabloids, and ride the bus to our next stop (Mike got sick reading while in motion, so he'd just sleep or tolerate me when I read aloud the latest antics of our British cousins). (Curious thought-provoking aside here: Where do you stand on this issue? We literally had nothing but a backpack for four weeks of summer travel. Thus we had about three or four changes of clothes. Without thinking about it, I fell into the pattern of changing clothes every day, even thought they weren't clean [I think we did one load of laundry in Liverpool; it was a Ringo tribute thing I can't quite recall]. Still, though, the thought of putting on a different set of clothes, though unclean, every morning, somehow felt right. Mike, on the other hand, and a more seasoned world traveler than I, used to wear the same clothes for four days straight then change into something else. Which method has its merits, I guess, but nearly twenty-five years later, I still side on the put different clothes on each day strategy. You?)

Anyway, after a delightful few days in Edinburgh (and what a charming place that is, truly) we had to catch an overnight train back to Cardiff, Wales. Now of course you're thinking, wait a minute, your first trip to the U.K., a mere four weeks, and you went to Cardiff not once but twice? Well, it was the summer of 1987, the summer of U2's Joshua Tree, and we had managed to scalp some tickets for the Cardiff show somewhere along our travels after the intitial day or two in Dylan Thomas propinquity ("Swansea, why would anyone want to go to Swansea?" our half-crazy B&B proprietor in Cardiff had asked us. The same lady who didn't "get" pop music and wondered about the likes of, I swear, Dick Jagger and that Boner guy). So, back in Edinburgh: in order to kill the time until our midnight train from Edinburgh, Mike and I put in a hard day's night work chipping away at our goal--100 pints of Guinness in four weeks' time. Needless to say we were well-oiled for the overnight train ride. We had mostly taken buses, but we had arrived in Edinburgh via a wonderfully modern train (with our own separate comfy compartment) from Glasgow. So as we giddily picked up our backpacks from the hostel, made our way to the train station, and picked up a Pizza Hut (all over the U.K. back then) pizza, we had visions of a luxurious night's sleep in a rolling train. Well, let's just say, Charles Dickens might have found the train we embarked on luxurious, because he had probably ridden on it, but to us it was rickety, hot, filled to capacity, and cramped. I managed to get the middle of three wooden seats, right next to a comatose nonagenarian who snored. Suffice it to say, conditions were not ideal for a twenty-four-year-old with a belly full of Guinness and sausage and onion pizza. Throw in a conductor whose through-the-night announcements of stations sounded like the voice of Charon's, and you have the most uncomfortable night of my life.

But propinquity, yes. We're nearing the end of this ramble. So about 4 a.m., deep in that part of the Guinness-drinking cycle when one should be asleep, I was awake, parched, suffering. The train was stopped somewhere and I appeared to be the only one alive on the train. I cursed Mike for being asleep, wiggled my way out of my seat and aisle, and made for the open doors of the train, realizing that fresh air only could keep me alive. And the air was nice, no doubt. But directly outside the train, no more than four steps onto the platform, stood a brightly lit juice vending machine. My God, no nomadic Bedouin in history ever looked upon an oasis with more life-affirming glee than I regarded that juice machine. But.

But what if the moment I stepped off the train to fetch a can of concentrated British juice the train were to close its doors and pull away? Just my luck, I figured. I'd be stranded somewhere in Great Britain without a Let's Go, without my backpack stuffed with gnarly but different clothes, and without a clue as to how to re-connect with my tour guide friend (1987 mind you, long before cell phones). Would the ancient conductor rasp out an "all aboard" giving me warning? Would the train start to chug away with its doors open for just a few seconds (after all, with my one pound coin at the ready in my parched but still sweaty palm, the entire act of leaving the train, buying the juice and getting back on the train couldn't have taken more than ten or fifteen seconds)? And yet I dithered. Agonizingly so, because that train must have sat there for fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of staring nirvana in the form of a juice vending machine in the face, but fifteen minutes of failing to risk abandonment to transform propinquity into (score!) reality. A lifetime in those fifteen minutes. A lifetime since pondering the meaning of those fifteen minutes. And eventually (don't/don't want to remember if there was any warning), the doors shut, the train chugged, and I was left standing dry. A nasty slurp or two from the tap in the bathroom hardly satisfied me the way that can of British juice would have. Damned proximity. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but sometimes propinquity makes the mind go loco. Get off the train, young man.

By the way, I've stopped posting music here because 1. I got sick of warning messages from the powers that be and 2. because I'd hate to pass along any virus that's been plaguing my computer. If I were still posting music, though, today it would be Dr. John's wonderful rendering of the hoary "The Nearness of You." Seek it out.