Memory Lane

What a stupid address. Because everything and nothing always changes, and we know that "always" and "never" is usually a lie.

I walked to dinner tonight. The Fitbit demands these kinds of sacrifices, and it's no sacrifice when it's a temperate autumn evening and your destination is over the ridge, at a campus restaurant.

So when I wonder how I got so stuck, if you could gently remind me that I live not only in the town where I went to college, but the town where I was born? That would be appreciated.

In walk just short of 10,000 steps, I can walk by:

• every ex-boyfriend's college housing
• the woods where I suspect my stolen purse was tossed, but have never been able to find therein
• a most magnificent view of Kalamazoo College's chapel, and if you turn 120 degrees to the right, the East Hall cupola at Western Michigan University
• the track where a college student was killed by a mentally ill stranger in 1987, which changed this town the obvious and paranoid ways that these things do
• a ginkgo sapling growing in an eaves-trough
• Dairy Queen, and all the calories therein
• the tracks where I flipped the bike I'd borrowed from my brother, and broke its frame
• the apartment where I lived at first with my now-husband
• the apartments of many more friends, past to present
• rotten apples placed along the top of a stone wall
• smells of wood burning, leaf mold, sour water and trash
• and finally, the overgrown garden of home.

For all these connections, I don't have more plans for tonight than the dinner I already ate. It's the time when I would be getting ready for bed on a weeknight. I guess I am worrying, what if I was alone? Would I ever leave the house? Or would I just connect with these memories, again and again? Does this worry mean that it's already too late?

But it's not too late. I can go for a walk anywhere, but here I know these things, and can learn  even more. (In fact, I'm already plotting a trip to go back and see if that's really a gingko, and how to take a picture of it.) There's no need to hyperventilate. Just breathe. And besides, my Fitbit fell off my wrist somewhere, so none of these future steps "count" anyway.

Big Talker

How's the media diet going, Liz? Well, just so you know, I think I've crushed more candy than ever since I declared war on mindless entertainment. I then rambled on and on about it at a house show, instead of paying close attention to the band like a real music fan would have and asked friends IN PERSON if I could send them stupid game requests. So basically, whatever I proclaim, you can assume I'm struggling with it in the other corner of the room.

(I have avoided those darn housewives, which allowed me to sound somewhat knowledgeable in a Sunday discussion about movies. I'm proud of myself. Pat me.)

So, sometimes I fail. As long as I continue to struggle, I have to consider it progress, or else I may quit trying. I don't want to fight the riptide either, but rest assured my natural laziness makes it more like floating on pool noodles and doggie paddling to the ladder when drinks need refills.

Or, as Martha Beck says, play until rest, rest until you feel like playing again.

This is resting. 

(Which reminds me to point out, I do read other bloggers. My two favorites right now are the Propaganda Professor and You Are Not So Smart. Although I'm pretty sure this just points to more confirmation bias, I just thought you should know it's not all woo woo in between my ears. )

So, I've re-stated my July resolutions, and wasted another evening. Knitting. Made a frittata out of the veggies. Blogged. Tried to reserve a hotel (unsuccessfully, I might add) for this long weekend's vacation. I listened to Speedy Ortiz on NPR (???) because they're playing at the house show I can't go to (and probably wouldn't have anyway - it turns out, hot, packed basements with only one rickety and blocked exit make my heart race and not for the excitement of seeing awesome bands, so enough with that brief flirtation with youth recaptured). Why do I have to remind myself this is okay? What did I want to accomplish with this piece of time?

I think I did as much as I could with the level of energy I had been given. I'm hugging myself.