Saturday, February 1, 2014

this is the story of a girl...

sal·u·ta·tion  (săl′yə-tā′shən)
n.
1.
a. A polite expression of greeting or goodwill.
b. salutations Greetings indicating respect and affection; regards.
2. A gesture of greeting, such as a bow or kiss.
3. A word or phrase of greeting used to begin a letter or message.

One of the highlights of her day was finding her favorite Chex Mix® at the local convenience store.

She had just been on a really long walk, a new kind of "Friday post work" tradition she had established after moving to this new town just a couple months prior. Partially because she wasn't used to sitting in a cubical for eight hours and could use the exercise, and partially because she really enjoyed the pedestrian perspective of the world. Everything usually whizzes past us so quickly these days, when you are walking somewhere you have to pay attention.
Her new city was a very interesting combination of urban and suburban, wherein one block you could be steeped in these very picturesque country homes with front yard gardens and baby swings hanging from old trees, and a pair of well worn lounge chairs. In the next it's a bustling cityscape with restaurants, bars, kava tea shoppes, and lot's of pet clothing stores, complete with the patrons who take those sorts of things seriously. She fancied herself the type of person that could silently mock the luxury pet items while still enjoy the fact that someone really cared if Fido had a plaid raincoat secretly pleased her.
It was a rainy plaid sort of town.



She liked walking around and peering in the open windows. Sometimes people imagine what the lives of the people who lived in the houses were like, this is not what she imagines on her strolls. Instead she liked to picture herself in their places, living their happy or malcontent lives. Sitting around the dinner table trying to make the fussy baby eat dinner, or lounging on the couch watching the ball game; face illuminated holy in the blue glow.
Is it only unhappy people who pretend they are other people?
Our heroine never thought of herself as unhappy, quite the opposite in fact. Bright as anything, she had a special ability to bring cheer wherever she went, and her smile was a veritable contagion. Inside however, she processed a lot, and during that time of internal churning she doubted. Doubt, she thought, was a hallmark of unhappiness, but also an indispensable quotient of wonderment and discovery. So, here she was charting new territory and reveling in the uncertainty of our times.

Sometimes it feels like the lives we are living are too much of this or not enough of that, and one of the things we often loose sight of is our privilege and perspective. There was an idea that had been inculcated in her mind at a very young age by her father, and this was to not look to people who had it better off than she did, but instead to look at those whose lives were less fortunate. That would cause her to always reevaluate her woes by attempting to look at them through another lens, sometimes the guilt from feeling sadness had been assuaged by remembering the fact that she was human. Thus entitled to run the gamut of experience and emotion, just not enough to be engulfed by the negativity that seemingly imbues much this earth, hopefully. There is too much to feel to spend too much time any one place.



After walking around for two hours, achieving the two goals she set out with; of obtaining the new months bus pass and exploring the Pearl district, she headed back in the direction of her home thinking about whether to stop at a bar or a restaurant for dinner. It was getting late and she was hungry. The more she thought about it, and as she walked past restaurants chock full of patrons, the more here solitary status irked her. Friday nights are date nights she thought, and being alone on this night would make her stand out more than she usually did when she went out alone. You have to be in a certain place to deal with the stigma of singleness, and she was not there on this particular evening. That is something people don't think about when they are in a couple, they go through their lives in tandem, and that is as much a part of living as anything else. When you are single, going through life is a solo ordeal, and many functions have the couple model built into it.

So she decided to set a course for her local convenience store, where she gleefully reunited with her favorite snack. And a couple bottles of red wine...

Until next time, she thinks you should expect that great things should happen. In your life! The same way she expects great things will happen in hers, and sends her good thoughts that all of the things that you, dear reader, desire, will come true...









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