Tea with Sheldon

Sheldon Patinkin Courtesy of his Facebook Profile

The red icon in the upper corner of my screen let me know I had a message waiting to be read. It was from Tracy, a college friend, reaching out to see if I’d like to get together for coffee. I’ve been slow to gather with those I know since returning to Chicago. Her invitation felt like a green light, and I immediately responded with a “yes”.

I arrived at the cafe in Evanston on Tuesday a few minutes early. I am almost always early, even when I try to be late. It’s some weird thing I have with time. On the rare occasion that I am late, there is always some bigger reason that reveals itself to me, like a present or a prize, usually letting me know I’d also just avoided some disaster.

As I walked up I noticed the outdoor seating area and observed a group of people get up and vacate one of the tables. “I bet that’s where we’ll sit,” I thought. I went in, looked all around for Tracy, even though I knew she was not there yet, walked back outside, and leaned against the building. A second later she appeared walking towards me.

She looks exactly as I remember her. I keep wondering if I have looked right at someone I used to know and not recognized them due to aging. Recognizing Tracy immediately confirmed for me that I probably have not.

We hugged and went inside. She bought me my matcha latte and got herself a tea, and I laughed internally that while we were meeting for coffee, 2:00pm was too late in the day for coffee for me. I am assuming the same for her.

“Want to sit outside?” she asked, and we headed right to the table I’d watched empty itself just moments before.

I sat in the chair on the sidewalk facing the street and she tried to sit in the chair across from me on my right, which was balanced upon some uneven concrete and the dirt from the tree behind us. “I can do this,” she said determinedly while moving the chair trying to get it on flat ground and failing as we both giggled.

“Forget it,” she said as she moved to the remaining chair at the table, the one to my left. She settled in and we picked up in conversation easily as if we had just had coffee tea together the other day. It was a mishmash of memories and what we’re up to now along with things we’ve experienced in the in-between. It’s been thirty-five years or so since we’ve seen one another in person. Her big news is that she’s on the verge of finishing a book that’s already been picked up by a publisher.

At some point, Sheldon Patinkin came up in conversation, as he always does when two or more people who attended or taught at or had anything to do with the Columbia College Theatre Department gather. Being the head of the theatre department at Columbia from 1980-2009 is just one achievement in a long, long list of his incredible accomplishments.

Tracy did her “Sheldon” which included the standard long drag off of the imaginary cigarette she held in her hand and then used it to gesture with as she proceeded to speak in the breathy, low, warm tone those of us who knew him remember so well. All of us had a Sheldon imitation we’d perfected over time and they all included the mimed cigarette followed by a long “Uhhhhhhhhh,” followed by whatever words he’d said that had been burned into our hearts, again in his tone, so specific to him and so fun for us all to mimic, always an homage.

Suddenly Sheldon was there, sitting in the wobbly chair that Tracy had to vacate a few moments earlier, leaning into the table and us, as he was often wont to do, his energy and love enveloping us.

“Sheldon’s here!” I exclaimed to Tracy. “He’s sitting right here with us!”

I don’t remember exactly what he said to us, it was not really important. He was not there with a specific message other than to let us know he was there, with us, in a supportive capacity as he often was.

His energy dispersed shortly afterward and Tracy moved on to other things. I interrupted at some point to say, “I don’t regularly have dead people showing up at the table like that. This was pretty unusual,” highlighting for myself the magic of the moment.

Tracy and I parted with hugs and intentions to see one another again soon, and off I went.

On Wednesday, I headed to the Andersonville Farmers’ Market as I regularly do. I was LATE heading out (gasp) and then ran into both a street closure and construction, so got there much later than the imaginary deadline for arrival I had assigned myself. While stepping away from one of the booths, stuffing my produce into my canvas bag, I spotted her. Lee-Ann took one of my channeling classes twenty-something years ago in Chicago when I taught at Healing Earth Resources and continued to work with me once Jon and I moved to California.

I shouted her name, unsurprised to see her at all. I had seen her face in my head more than once and was just waiting to run into her. It turns out she regularly was not at the market at that time but had a schedule change that day and found it to be the perfect thing to fill in while waiting for her next stop.

Hugs and love and conversation exchanged, I left the market, my bags filled with organic goods and my heart with more happiness. She also happens to be a published author.

On Thursday, Jon and I headed to Tweet in Uptown for brunch. We’d whittled down our options to four for that day and after tuning in intuitively and using my tarot cards as confirmation, Tweet was the choice. We pulled up and parked right in front. As I got out of the car a woman sitting at a table near the front of the restaurant called out, “Oh my God, Nora!?!?” as she lept out of her chair, “Are you visiting here?”

“No, we now live here,” I replied while trying to process who was greeting me. For a moment I thought I had for sure run into the situation where I was seeing someone from thirty years ago and could not remember who they were. College, theatre, high school, waitressing, Victoria’s Secret, readings, and psychic work, I flipped through the Rolodex in my brain as I tried to remember where I knew this woman from.

“Hi!” I said as my confusion started to clear and realized that standing in front of me was Kate, someone I knew in Ojai who I had almost always seen at the Thursday Farmers’ Markets. She was in town visiting and it turns out that she’d lived in Chicago for nine years.

After a perfect Chicago brunch - food, vibe, service, we stopped by Kate’s table again, and I explained my earlier confusion to her, laughing about trying to place her in Chicago, also laughing that it was indeed on a Thursday that I was running into her just more than halfway across the country from where I normally did.

That evening, while walking the pack in the neighborhood, for a second I thought I saw Anna Shapiro. I am sure it was not her, but someone who looks vaguely like her lives a block from me. Anna and I attended Columbia at the same time. Back then, everyone in the theatre department knew everyone else. I was fortunate to be there then with an intimate group of exceptionally talented beings.

When we returned home from our dog adventure, I opened my laptop, went right to the Columbia College Alumni Site, and clicked the “Events” link. There it was. In one week there will be an alumni event honoring Sheldon which will be held at the Theatre Building of the college on the 10-year anniversary of Sheldon’s passing. I immediately registered to attend. The last time I set foot in that building was in January of 2015 when we traveled to Chicago for Sheldon’s celebration of life and to have an event of our own. It’s also the last time I channeled in a public forum in Chicago.

I am still working out what it means, if anything, (you know me and signs, especially repeating ones that come in threes) that in three days in a row, I ran into three people who each represented a segment of the last forty years of my life in chronological order. A few weeks ago I ran into someone from high school while grocery shopping.

Saturn & Neptune are retrograde in Pisces, Pluto is retrograde in Capricorn, and Chiron is retrograde in Aries.

The opportunities to reflect upon ourselves, our choices, and our paths are endless right now.

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