Return

I have a rare night with nothing in it, and I'm using it to try to return to a time before something.  Sometimes it would help to double back in life to a time where you hadn't made a certain decision, or turned down a certain path.  I have a very clear memory of a pure sort of happiness two years ago of a weekend with my best friend.  It was an amazing spring day, we were in a beautiful city, and I knew I'd be in a play when I did get back to Chicago.  The day, warm and bright, with the sort of glee that the first comfortable weather brings, was full of tasty food and one of my favorite people, and some of my favorite landscape in the universe.  It was a day saturated with yes, bathed with delight.

After that, a lot of strange, confusing and, to be fair, occasionally magnificent complications began to develop.  Those complications have mostly resolved themselves now, and I lie in that odd calm where one is both grateful the storm has broken and missing fury and excitement as your bland, storm-free life continues.

So tonight, with this oasis of free time, I thought I'd try to bodily transport myself to the simpler version of myself.  I used to be left on my own on a Saturday night pretty often, and I'd cook and clean or putter, and listen to the radio.  I got very fond of The Vinyl Cafe, a Canadian program that showcases long form storytelling alongside musical guests.  The storytelling is homey, personal, small town events and family dramas that vault beyond their humble origins to touch something about being human.  I thought it would be nice to sit and crochet and listen to the Vinyl Cafe, and pretend life was so simple that I didn't need to worry about anything or anyone except making a crocheted toy for a toddler.  (Someone else's toddler, I hasten to add.)

They've changed the schedule.  Vinyl Cafe plays on Thursday nights now.

But never fear, the internet came in handy, and now I sit, awash in Stuart McLean's Canada, with my crocheting, and I try to pare myself of complications.

I think too much about things I've lost, and then I waste time regretting all the time I'm spending thinking, and all the regrets start running together like beads of rain collecting down a windshield, gathering momentum.

Maybe tonight I can just make a lion and listen to a story and it'll be enough and I won't miss complications.

Thank goodness for other people's stories.