Pre-Lapse

The sunny south has turned frigid.  Young people rejoice, of course, as they long for change (while counting on stability), so I will, too, though in truth, it cuts into my bones.  I have a ski trip to Park City coming up in a few weeks, and tonight I wonder why?  What could I have been thinking?  But I know what I was thinking.  I thought that if I did the things I used to, I would be happy as I was then.  Tonight, I skipped the gym.  I could not imagine working out with bones that ached and especially didn't want to walk out of the gym in damp clothing.  No, it would be impossible, I thought, so I went to the camera store after work and picked up a Canon 5D that I'm purchasing with the factory funds instead.  Driving home, though, I almost entertained the thought of going to the gym after all, but I was tired and lazy and thought, "If I go straight, I can stop at the grocery store, and if I turn right, I can go to the liquor store."  It was a choice I had to make.  I did not want to do both.  On a cold night like this, I thought, a thick ale would be just the thing.  I have fallen off the wagon just a bit. . . .  I thought about the leftovers in the refrigerator and about the Thai Red Curry Noodles in the cupboard next to the canned chicken, and while they were not ideal meals at all, they would do, so I turned right.  Skipping out of the gym and going to the liquor store, I thought.  Irresponsible.  Sweet.

Night was coming soon, and the air was cold and thin and the sky the color of memories.  I was off my usual path and into other territory and it felt good and right.  It is good to cut loose, good to break away, especially on the first day back to a life-denying routine.  Everything was young forever.  Everything was new again.

I went into the liquor store, not one I go to much.  It was like starting over.  I wanted to get Grolsch beer but they only had twelve packs which is just fundamentally wrong since you can buy the big-ass bottles with a stopper on a wire that allows you to re-cork it, so I bought a big bottle of Chimay Cinq Cent Ale instead.  And a little bit--just a dram or two--of scotch.  I wouldn't drink it, I told myself, but it felt so good buying it on cold and purple night.

Back in the car, I checked my email before I left the parking lot.  There was something from G.G.  She has fallen, it seems, in a way to make one envious.  Her new boy is sweet and thoughtful and sensitive, she wrote.  She loves to walk with him holding hands.  Yes--hands.  It made me think of Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio" (and if you haven't read it, oh, please, please, please read it, so terribly and awfully and heartbreakingly beautiful), and I could be happy for her.

I had sent her "Young World" by Ricky Nelson in an email the night before, and she wrote to say that she liked it, so sappy sweet and beautiful.  Of course. . . when you're in love, it's just a young world.

Backing out into the road, headlights were beginning to come on, and life felt a sweet recollection.  Remember, I thought, when it felt like this always, when life poured out before you like a thick syrup highway?  Cinq Cent and scotch and a little cat at home who might love me.  There could be more, I thought.  Much.

I thought about the first day back to the factory.  There were some things to like, some people.  But there is the other, too.  Workers gathered together in exclusive clumps, laughing and complaining, telling one another about their holidays.  As foreman, I got the complaints.  They sounded like trombones, like the Penguin in "Batman.'  And of course floating over it all was the Cheshire grin of the supervisor.  

But not to dwell.  I am heating up the leftovers now and drinking the heavy Cinq Cent with mon chat.  I will play with the new camera and then watch another episode of HBO's 2001 series "The Wire."  I wish I'd seen it then.  Man, it is good.  

So I will post here for you what I sent to G.G. even though I know I will get a drawerful of hate mail for it.    If my upload doesn't work, you can go here to see Ricky and the Boys perform (link) their ode to a pre-lapserian world.