I’ve been working on a blog post for days. DAYS, I tell you. Something hasn’t clicked though and all of those words, thousands of them, have gone to the digital trash heap in the cloud. (IYGIYGI)
Recently, I got into a … verbal altercation … with someone. This is unusual for me. I am not the kind of person who invests in that sort of drama. It shook me, if you want to know the truth. The woman, unfortunately for me, works at a store that I go to relatively frequently and now I’m debating whether I can return. I may be leaving the country and changing my name.
Technically, I was not at fault, as she started it. Nonetheless, I have gone over my own behavior (a post-mortem, you know) and I think I could have handled the situation more effectively. Blergh. There’s nothing to be done other than to determine whether I can bring myself to go back to that place again. Conflict sucks.
I’m at the coffee shop, working on a book. Up until today, it’s been going well, making me laugh, though this afternoon I spend most of my time reflecting back the light of a blank screen or pressing delete to erase badly constructed sentences. I sigh and look up to see a couple in line to get drinks. They’re turned toward each other, laughing, bits of their bodies touching in that way that couples sometimes have. It’s as though their whole beings are slightly magnetized so that if they’re close enough, their bodies automatically make contact – two fingers, their shoulders, even their hair. It’s so lovely to watch the dance of their connectedness.
The day itself is sharply melancholy in that way a day can be. It’s beautiful – warm with the crisp scent of spring and the bright light of a cloudless sky – but all of the things that make it beautiful are things that, in the coin flip of daily life, also create the perfect conditions for melancholia.
Groups of people gather, their chatter incessant, almost boisterous. A couple sits at the window, their hands clasped on the table. As they get up to leave, she takes his arm and snuggles into his shoulder before he slips his arm from her grasp and, instead, takes her hand, twining their fingers together. They walk out of the shop smiling at each other.
Someone asks to take the extra chair from my table. I’m alone, of course, so it’s empty and available to them. I nod and they slip the chair into place at another table, one that already has six chairs stuffed around it. Now those people sit around the tiny table. It’s so small that their ring of chairs creates a moat of knees encircling the table. They too are loud with the found joy of their togetherness, sipping lattes, hot teas, espressos, and a loan Americano.
Enough of this mood. I head home and make my youngest a meatball sub for dinner. He’s delighted by my attempt to alter the energy of my day but I still haven’t accomplished that. Fine. I can do better. I text my daughter and offer her and her roomie free ice cream. I defy anyone to feel gloomy with handmade ice cream.
They meet me at the ice cream shop. It’s called Treat, apropos for an ice cream shop. I get a scoop of salted caramel, though the lavender raspberry was a very close second. My guests get mint chocolate chip and a combo of creamy peach and lemon drop custard. It’s all great, honestly. Unfortunately, it is also unsuccessful at releasing me from this funk. Ridiculous. If even a scoop of ice cream enjoyed on a shady bench can’t brush the dour mist from my gaze then it might be smarter to just start again tomorrow.
There’s no point in continuing to write comedy when the words flowing from my fingers lack even the wit of the grave.
Hoping that tomorrow brings me counsel and you delight.
Much love.
