this day still
I live in Oregon, so tonight I wore my fancy flip-flops because I went to the opera. I miss dressing up sometimes. But in exchange, at least, I’m never underdressed.The show was Ruddigore, a Gilbert & Sullivan comedy with barons and bridesmaids and quite a lot of dancing, much of it performed by Operaman. It’s the last show he’s doing for a long while, because he’s moving out of town and going back to school. It was a good way to go out. He was one of the principals and he was awesome. And at the end after his bow he stood up and blew me a kiss, and the woman next to me spun around and said, Was that for you? It was pretty cool.
Sometime last fall I guess – after the long summer of unexpected unpredictability – I got in the mood for a small span of sameness. One house / one job / one relationship was the unfamiliar craving. And over the course of a few bumpy months I discovered all three, to one degree or another. But the boy I liked had different plans, and the house I found had him in it, and the job I got I did half-time, and poorly. So I entered the era of Keeping Things In Mind. Keeping In Mind that I’m good at this kind of thing. Keeping In Mind that when I'm not, I need to suck it up. Keeping In Mind that when I can't, there are some extraordinary folks who have my back.
A few months ago during a long self-absorbed phone conversation with one of them (who fielded more of these calls than even a generous friend would welcome) I summed up my predominant mood of the winter. I am not kicking ass, I told him.
OK, he replied. But are you taking names?
And yesterday I put peas in the ground, and today I ordered tall socks for my kickball team, and tonight I gave Operaman one kiss goodbye. One sweet kiss with nothing but all the best wishes I have in me. I love the peace of this part – the part where you are thankful for shared time and space, and the part where you then both head back out into the universe, bigger and surer and new.
Tomorrow, when I wake up, it will be summer. Not the one I planned, of course. Some other one I can't even imagine yet.
posted by tortaluga @ 3:07 AM
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