letting the curtains turn to beating wings

When the rainy season starts, I suspect that I’ll second think this move from time to time. I like rain. Don’t get me wrong. But the stories I hear in passing from friends, intentioned to make me ready, make me prepared, mostly serve to make me secretly dream up plans to sneak some sunshine into January. A mason jar sealed tightly perhaps. A vacation to someplace warm and sandy maybe too.

You see. My mood is often swayed by the weather. 100 days of rain is dangerous.

Speaking of sunshine. Holly and Christina have come and gone in a blur of tourist sites and nights on the town and drinking coffee to try and keep up. Those girls slay me. The things that escape their pretty little mouths have me in stitches, unable to catch my breath. They mapped out places to go and it was Christina leading the way. Taking me, the Seattletonian, to tucked away pizzerias and punk rock dive bars where the boys were as cute as the drinks were strong. Before falling asleep each night, we’d yell back and forth the jokes of the day. Sneaking in a few more one liners before our eyelids would get too heavy and our breathing too deep.

Some of the places they took me are my favorites now. Favorites as soon as I stepped in the door.

Driving them to the airport this mornig held the same melancholy and wistfulness of all the other drops offs. Paul. Jodi. Kevin. Irene. Jodi again. And now them. The hugs and talk to you soons and have a safe flights are icing. Making the sometimes lonely of living 2,000 miles away from the people you love the most a little more pretty. A little more bearable. Covered in pale yellow butter cream that smells of birthdays.

There are so many things I’ve missed. I haven’t written in far too long. Let’s not count the barely legal Smurfette post. Let’s just not.

I missed spewing the goo of a happy hour gone wrong. Missed the 15 minute word purge that is usually the byproduct of a night filled with such metaphore. Such story below the surface. We talked about what we wanted to do like we were 17. Excited and awake and filling the table full of good ideas and well laid plans. I remember thinking how quickly we had stopped talking about work. And being happy for that. Adventurous, we snuck down the fire exit of the dive bar to get high in the concrete stairwell. Busted! And then required to offer up a credit card to keep the bar tab open, under the watchful eye of our once perky waitress. The three of us just starred at each other for the longest time, quiet. Dumbstruck. Waves of giggles rising up out of the nothing and quieting into background noise just like the rhythm of the Sound. The night ended with as many bad ideas as there had been good. Meetin up with some friends. Softly kissing boys I shouldn’t softly kiss. Staying up until the streets emptied. All on a school night. Still drunk on my walk to work.

There is more. Days, hours, minutes of missed this or that. Stories that were crystal clear are now foggy and dim. Making time to write keeps me centered. Not making time sends me spinning like a top. I use to twirl around and around as a kid. Six year old me in the living room, arms out. I'd spin until I was sick and could barely stand. Letting the room turn around me as I'd sway and smile.

More the same than different.