Week’s End

A huge swim meet is in town. Roving bands of teens and parents and their friends clog the beach sidewalks, each sporting their own light purple or hot pink or deep blue T-shirts emblazoned with logos that shout out pride from small towns from far away that I will likely never visit. Younger siblings tag along, some bored, some enthralled. In my movie, they will make a perfect swirling background, a backdrop in perpetual motion.

When the girl and her dog head to the beach with a vague mission to rub the sticks together that will give off the spark to rekindle a friendship, these happy, healthy family groups push past her, hesitate in front of her, pause next to her to pat her dog’s head. They make the girl feel uncomfortable in their wholesomeness, their togetherness. All scare her dog, except one little girl with curly blond hair. She whispers to the dog, kisses the top of her head, and the dog is calmed by her. In my movie, the audience will wonder about her symbolism based solely upon her looks.

When the girl meets the boy who wants more than her friendship, the boy to whom she gave more than friendship until it fell apart over a simmering something she clearly caused but still cannot define, the boy stirs it all up again, insisting all will be okay if she can just see his point of view. The girl pats her dog in a successful attempt to keep tears from freely falling, because the boy doesn’t see them shining in her eyes when she looks up at him as he explains and explains. In my movie, the audience will wonder why the girl paid for a dinner that ultimately ended with her walking away from the night, alone and friendless. “Maybe she didn’t know it would end that way,” someone in the audience will whisper to a friend.

The girl will go home later that night and wonder how it is she is back where she started in this place–alone and feeling friendless. In my movie, the audience will know–be absolutely sure–that this is a turning point for the girl, and how great it will be later in the movie when the girl realizes it, too.

Thursday is my Friday. This is what Thursday night looks like as my “weekend” begins–blurred and beautiful. In my movie, the audience will almost feel the caress of the cool breeze that makes the girl hug her dog close to keep them both from shivering. In my movie, the audience will sigh at this scene and be completely spellbound to find out what happens next.

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9 responses to “Week’s End”

  1. ellen Avatar
    ellen

    sounds like it’s time you wrapped things up there and headed home …
    i see much of me in you … and don’t think this is a dumb question but are you going through the *change*?

    forget the hot flashes .. it really is about change … but in my case, i never looked back …

    good luck which ever way your journey takes you …

  2. Restaurant Gal Avatar
    Restaurant Gal

    Actually, I am having my period. Wow, that explains it!

  3. Kim Ayres Avatar

    Chick-flick

  4. Restaurant Gal Avatar
    Restaurant Gal

    Kim–You will attend the premiere, won’t you? Of course!

  5. Kim Ayres Avatar

    I’ll buy a black bow tie especially for the event

  6. m gal Avatar
    m gal

    Asked in a careful, gentle voice: Do you ever go back and read your own archives? I’ve read your blog for awhile now, and at first I was drawn to your wit and your insight into the human condition, but lately I think I keep being drawn to it because it is so deeply emotional. As someone who has watched from the side lines for months, privy only to the details of your life that you provide here, ever since you’ve been in Florida your posts, even your hopeful, upbeat posts, have all been so raw. They have a very different, almost desperate tenor compared to your D.C. posts. Like someone hanging on to a cliff ledge by their fingertips, dangling above a vast abyss, all the while calling, ‘but really, you should see the view from here, it’s great!’ While you were in D.C. maybe you felt discontent, maybe you felt smothery… but were you this miserable, alone and unhappy? In D.C. you couldn’t (wouldn’t) tell us why you had to leave, and now in Florida, you won’t (can’t) explain why you stay. If you were as miserable in D.C. as you are in Florida I could see why you would want to leave. But it seems reversed. You weren’t hugely happy and fulfilled in D.C. so you left, and you’re not completely, unredeemably miserable in Florida so you stay. Why is saying, ‘gosh, this isn’t how I thought it would be’ an admission of defeat? Sometimes our pain is because we choose to hug a cactus : remember, the tighter you cling the more you impale yourself. it only stops hurting when you let it go. D.C., your family, your home, it’s calling to you. Florida is hurting you. I can see why other posters ride the seesaw of ‘do what you want, what you need.’ It’s so hard to judge with so few details. But with the ones that you yourself have given us it seems very obvious: When you visit D.C. you’re happy. When you come back to FL you’re miserable. Let go of the cactus.

  7. Restaurant Gal Avatar
    Restaurant Gal

    m gal–Yours is an incredibly sensitive comment, which I so appreciate. I read it three times to make sure I fully captured its spirit. Please know this: Something quite spectacular happened when the seemingly worst that could happen happened this past week. I felt sad, but I also felt a sense of inexplicable relief. Now, what that means for tomorrow? Who the heck knows? But I do believe I just climbed back onto the ledge with my fingernails intact.

  8. A Friend Avatar
    A Friend

    Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
    You been out ridin fences for so long now
    Oh, you’re a hard one
    I know that you got your reasons
    These things that are pleasin you
    Can hurt you somehow

    Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
    She’ll beat you if she’s able
    You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

    Now it seems to me, some fine things
    Have been laid upon your table
    But you only want the ones that you can’t get

    Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin no youger
    Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin you home
    And freedom, oh freedom well, thats just some people talkin
    Your prison is walking through this world all alone

    Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time?
    The sky wont snow and the sun wont shine
    It’s hard to tell the night time from the day
    You’re loosin all your highs and lows
    Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?

    Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
    Come down from your fences, open the gate
    It may be rainin, but theres a rainbow above you
    You better let somebody love you, before its too late

  9. jalii Avatar

    Call me whenever – for whatever. ((((the gal))))