eventually
My two children are plugged into Netflix. My partner is working out to metal music. All is normal, though I prefer to eat dinner by 6:30pm…
My two children are plugged into Netflix. My partner is working out to metal music. All is normal, though I prefer to eat dinner by 6:30pm, our new routine has us eating closer to 7 or 7:30pm. I am not the chef. I do not complain, though I want to.
The wind blows hard today. There has been rain, sleet, snow and bright bright sun. The clouds hustle along; big blue expanses show themselves for 20 minutes at a time, the sun blazing into the cold. The tops of trees whip back and forth out my street-facing window. I went for a cold walk. This time to mail letters, to pick up seeds from a neighbor. Then, just to walk for walking’s sake. To feel my feet on the ground over and over again. On a normal day pre-quarantine, I would log thousands and thousands of steps, traveling through the city, through schools and hospital hallways. Now, I wonder what my body will be like after this strange period of time.
I asked my sister to come out of her apartment, to come out and say hello to me, and we stood on her stoop, distancing. I talked and talked and made her laugh and felt like myself and felt the cold and the wind which is nice to feel when you just want to feel different. I felt like outside me. Now, here at home, my face feels the tiniest bit windburned. I don’t mind. The outside will be there after all of this. That’s one thing I know.
I want to attend a large family event. A wedding rehearsal dinner, a baby shower, a reunion, a 70th birthday party. I want to be in a banquet hall, an Elk’s Lodge, a Lion’s Club, a rec hall, a school gym. I want to eat sausages, penne alla vodka, those meatballs, fried chicken, lasagna, buttery noodles. Drink a vodka/soda with a twist of lemon and lime at the open bar, smile at the bartender and put a $20 in their tip cup and hope they remember me when I return over and over throughout the night. Drink wine with family, reapply lipstick. Fix my tights. Laugh loudly over the music. Say “Yes! Of course I remember!” Hear the song. Feel the call to the dance floor, dance hard, then get so tired all I want to do is go home again.