Meeting An Alchemist

Everybody was invited to the event regardless of their grade or standing in the group.

It was a nice gesture of solidarity but those running the group also wanted to honor the guest and look good by packing he lecture hall with enough people.

D. was indifferent to the event, Beth was excited, and I was approaching it out of curiosity as I had never met an alchemist before.

My first impression?

It wasn’t so much what he lectured about, which was interesting and insightful, but rather it was how he carried himself.

People in the group were involved for different reasons, their own reasons, just like me, but the one common thread that seemed to weave through the group was the psychology of the thing.

Since I didn’t know any better, how you grow up in a thing becomes the benchmark of what *normal* is, it surprised me more than a bit when he spoke of this thing there was no psychology behind it, he approached it as if it was actually real.

That left me with some options to consider, considerations that I had never thought of before.

After the lecture and a brief meet and greet our guest was taken out for dinner, a more intimate structure, and a number of the group members of a certain level were invited.

Beth and D. were both attending, and apparently, I was attending through the graces of Beth.

Which I wasn’t going to turn down.

Dinner was held at a local pub, in a private room in the back set with a L shaped table.

I let everybody else sit first and by habit I took my place at the end of the table near the door, which was the last place anybody wanted to sit.

A habit and holdover from the dojo when we all went out after class.

D. and Beth noticed where I was sitting and motioned for me to join them, moving from the end of the table to the center.

Dinner was nice and it was later over coffee and drinks at the table that the pace of things shifted.

People were asking more personal questions, asking question which seemed to confirm how great they thought, questions that given the structure of the relationship seemed a bit forward.

I didn’t ask any questions, not that I didn’t have any questions to ask.

The alchemist gracefully tolerated them and answered them in great detail.

When we left the pub for the evening the three of us decided to walk around the city a bit, which had shifted into that quiet late night AM vibe.

We found a bench near the planetarium which was a favorite spot as D. was in the middle of imaging what could have been if the three of us were students of the alchemist.

An elaborate tale of what could be and where it would take us.

In a good-natured way Beth egged D. on, and the fantasy got grander and grander until even the time could not sustain it any further.

Since D.’s apartment was just around the corner and Beth’s a few blocks away I offered to walk her home before I caught the last train for the evening. 

What did I think of the evening?

I appreciated the invite to the gathering in the first place, as I know it was her hand in finding me a spot to attend given the closed nature of the event.

And what did I think D.’s imagination of things?

Interesting as always, and always a delight to hear his ability to make anything sound actually possible.

Why wouldn’t something like that be possible was the follow up.

Because I could never meet the required conditions of what would need to be understood as a student of the alchemist.

What did I mean by that, it was a genuine question from her.

The alchemist was approaching thing on a completely different level then we our group, not as a criticism, but radical acceptance.

Asking him to be a student would mean learning French out of a sign of respect and so he could communicate with me in the nuances of how his mind expressed things.

It would also mean moving to Europe and living there with the fortitude to hand out with the alchemist for a few years just observing things before even possibly being accepted as a student.

And that is before considering if I would even be able to follow and complete what he would be showing me.

If I was not prepared to offer him that, I would not disrespect him by asking in the first place.

Beth was silent for the rest of the block, just looking at me sideways, as if something between us had just changed.