I spent the morning watching kindergartners muck around in a pond, and I spent the afternoon listening to the still-familiar cadence of the voice of a friend I hadn’t seen in over a decade, and I spent the evening talking about favorite things with my favorite boys.
“Ummmm…. coloring,” said B, when asked what his favorite part of the day was. I suppose when you get to catch tadpoles any time you’d like and are too young to partake in a beer tasting at the 2013 Best Brewery in the World (as opined by RateBeer), coloring really might be the best part of the day.
But for me, the day was great because I was doing something I’d never done before and I was doing it with someone I used to see on a fairly frequent basis (we shared an apartment for a school year) and now never see. And he’s moving to a far-away state, so it feels, in some ways, like maybe I’ll never see him again. I know, I know… I’m being maudlin, and a tad self-pitying. Perhaps it’s all that beer. Or, perhaps I rely on my daily routines to hold me up in a specific way. Maybe I need my steps A, B, and C in order to function well enough to complete steps D, E, and F, and when I’m interrupted by a tiny party of a day it’s, you know, wonderfully fun and happy and a tiny bit sad. Like when you go on vacation to Tuscany and you spend the whole time thinking why can’t every day be a vacation day and then you come back and realize oh, that’s why.
Or, really, maybe it’s the beer.
Or, it was a great day and now it’s ending. Before me stretches bedtimes, reading time on the couch, chores, an early bedtime. Rising tomorrow to a fresh pot of coffee. All of which adds up to a pretty great moment of a life.
Goodnight, dears.
Let us go then, you and I 