Things are suddenly changing fast. I haven't checked my email or my snail mail in a week, since I've spent my days running around with friends, seeing things, doing things, really just living. I've seen a ridiculous number of Oles in the past week, not to mention worlds sliding weirdly together -- meeting Alex Steele in a plaza on Nicolett Mall, introducing him to Ann's high school friend Nick and hordes of Ole classmates, taking him to the St. Croix Tavern... On Saturday I dragged him to Summer and Owen's wedding, where I was delighted to see and catch up with Allie and Eric and Elaine.
Saturday, actually, was crazy. I was scheduled to work lunch, but I got switched on the schedule to be out at 4, which was a problem since we were shooting to leave for Northfield at 2:30. So I had to fanangle a sub, and then still try to get out of the restaurant by 2 in the middle of a late lunch rush -- but not before Mike exploded a keg on me. I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was muttering to myself all the way up the hill about how I took pains to shower last night so I'd be ready to go immediately after work, and now I'm sticky and covered in beer... And that's when it started pouring. So that seven-minute bike ride took care of the sticky, and the sweat, so I could speed-change and eat the burrito Alex and Ann had made for me and hightail it out of there.
Then I got a text message from my brother saying that he and Grampa were leaving the Cities and would be arriving at our house in an hour. We weren't expecting them until Sunday evening, so we were a little alarmed seeing as we were about to leave, lock up the house, and not return until who knows what time (turned out to be about midnight). So that was a fiasco, but it worked out just fine in the end.
Basically, I was the luckiest girl in the world this weekend. I don't know quite how I managed to get 4 of my favorite people in the world into my house at the same time for several days, but there was a moment where I looked in the rearview mirror of my new candy white VW Golf and saw my unbelievably cool grandfather, my first best friend/younger brother, my beloved Bizz, and the ever-important Alex all somehow squished into this tiny space. The open sunroof must have let in some magic particles/good karma/fresh air/blessings because I have never felt so overwhelmed with uncontested and uncontestable love. There were so many moments over sweet corn and chili last night where Ann caught my eye with a perma-smile of utter wonder at the family curled around the kitchen island, at the two empty pots of chili. Plus, all these wonderful people got along so marvelously that I didn't even think to worry about my lucky streak breaking.
But I've got to move on pretty quick now, so I'm turning my immediate attention to the tasks at hand, all moving-related checkboxes to tick over the next 2 days. Bizz-squared is gung-ho to go, not to leave here but to get on the road. The time for sadness is both passed and not yet arrived, and we're looking forward. I'm starting to wonder whether the perfectness of our lives this summer had to do mainly with us living together, and to worry that perfection will get a little dusty when the sun goes away and she is halfway across the country from me. But thoughts like that are more often than not a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I'm going to try and leave them somewhere along the way, plan trips to Northfield, and look forward to May when maybe I can reclaim all the kitchen utensils I paid for at St. Croix Falls garage sales -- i.e., mix them all back up so we don't have to separate whose is whose.
Today is my last day of work, and it's another knot I'm tying in my life here. Yesterday I exchanged email addresses with Erik the cook/drummer, who wants to play a show in Wilmington/Philly sometime this year. Saturday was our last SCF Farmers' Market, where we bid farewell to all our favorite sellers and they handed us free yellow tomatoes and business cards on top of our guilty last orders. Our fridge is overflowing with summer squash and zucchini and sweet orange cherry tomatoes, celery and kale and a jar of fresh maple syrup. Ann is taking our bikes and the Rover down to Hudson early tomorrow morning, ending the brief love affair between our two adorable vehicles, my brief argument with the gear switch on my borrowed bicycle, and our low-impact thigh-happy summer.
This is both an isolated event in my life and the catalyst for my first inklings that transience is something cosmically significant about me and my worldly existence. Take my thoughts first and foremost as a current play-by-play, but note the foreshadowing because I suspect you will be seeing much more of Me, the Straddler of Worlds, in the weeks and months to come.
Until then,
The Present Clara
Saturday, actually, was crazy. I was scheduled to work lunch, but I got switched on the schedule to be out at 4, which was a problem since we were shooting to leave for Northfield at 2:30. So I had to fanangle a sub, and then still try to get out of the restaurant by 2 in the middle of a late lunch rush -- but not before Mike exploded a keg on me. I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was muttering to myself all the way up the hill about how I took pains to shower last night so I'd be ready to go immediately after work, and now I'm sticky and covered in beer... And that's when it started pouring. So that seven-minute bike ride took care of the sticky, and the sweat, so I could speed-change and eat the burrito Alex and Ann had made for me and hightail it out of there.
Then I got a text message from my brother saying that he and Grampa were leaving the Cities and would be arriving at our house in an hour. We weren't expecting them until Sunday evening, so we were a little alarmed seeing as we were about to leave, lock up the house, and not return until who knows what time (turned out to be about midnight). So that was a fiasco, but it worked out just fine in the end.
Basically, I was the luckiest girl in the world this weekend. I don't know quite how I managed to get 4 of my favorite people in the world into my house at the same time for several days, but there was a moment where I looked in the rearview mirror of my new candy white VW Golf and saw my unbelievably cool grandfather, my first best friend/younger brother, my beloved Bizz, and the ever-important Alex all somehow squished into this tiny space. The open sunroof must have let in some magic particles/good karma/fresh air/blessings because I have never felt so overwhelmed with uncontested and uncontestable love. There were so many moments over sweet corn and chili last night where Ann caught my eye with a perma-smile of utter wonder at the family curled around the kitchen island, at the two empty pots of chili. Plus, all these wonderful people got along so marvelously that I didn't even think to worry about my lucky streak breaking.
But I've got to move on pretty quick now, so I'm turning my immediate attention to the tasks at hand, all moving-related checkboxes to tick over the next 2 days. Bizz-squared is gung-ho to go, not to leave here but to get on the road. The time for sadness is both passed and not yet arrived, and we're looking forward. I'm starting to wonder whether the perfectness of our lives this summer had to do mainly with us living together, and to worry that perfection will get a little dusty when the sun goes away and she is halfway across the country from me. But thoughts like that are more often than not a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I'm going to try and leave them somewhere along the way, plan trips to Northfield, and look forward to May when maybe I can reclaim all the kitchen utensils I paid for at St. Croix Falls garage sales -- i.e., mix them all back up so we don't have to separate whose is whose.
Today is my last day of work, and it's another knot I'm tying in my life here. Yesterday I exchanged email addresses with Erik the cook/drummer, who wants to play a show in Wilmington/Philly sometime this year. Saturday was our last SCF Farmers' Market, where we bid farewell to all our favorite sellers and they handed us free yellow tomatoes and business cards on top of our guilty last orders. Our fridge is overflowing with summer squash and zucchini and sweet orange cherry tomatoes, celery and kale and a jar of fresh maple syrup. Ann is taking our bikes and the Rover down to Hudson early tomorrow morning, ending the brief love affair between our two adorable vehicles, my brief argument with the gear switch on my borrowed bicycle, and our low-impact thigh-happy summer.
This is both an isolated event in my life and the catalyst for my first inklings that transience is something cosmically significant about me and my worldly existence. Take my thoughts first and foremost as a current play-by-play, but note the foreshadowing because I suspect you will be seeing much more of Me, the Straddler of Worlds, in the weeks and months to come.
Until then,
The Present Clara
givin me the chills, Bean. Some of us are movers and some of us are shakers, I think it's fair to call you both.
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