introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- weekender weekender - 2014-06-29 "her dirty paws and furry coat, she ran down the forest slopes. the forest of talking trees...they used to sing about the birds and the bees."~of monsters and men it has been a pretty terrific weekend, america. the weather has cooperated and brought all the warmth i was craving from the south right on up to me in bangor. one thing i've been missing is the hot of the city...which is probably a weird thing to say. there are just those summer days when every pore in your skin opens up and sweats out all the dust of winter and finally...finally...summer is inside you again. this was one of those weekends. the last two days, i've returned home happy, tired, and salty with summer on my skin. the temperature was heavy into the upper 80s for the first days this summer. yesterday, i got up early for my friend-date. that guy i'd mentioned before that lives pretty much across the street from me decided that he would actually come out and play. i'd invited him along to the woods with me but i get that my walks aren't going to be everyone's idea of enjoyable. "hey, champ...it's supposed to be gorgeous this weekend. want to go for a walk either saturday or sunday? to be fair, the minimum i do is about 2 miles. i'm open to other ideas, of course." the walk was out as his back bothers him so we made alternate plans. in truth, while i know i'm not super fast (despite working on getting my pace faster every time) i suspect slowing down would bug me a little. i thought of those handful of bike rides with terri and jill all those years ago and how i felt like i was barely moving. i'm cool with meeting people where they are but my walks in the woods have become so sacred to me that i'm not sure i was ready to share them with this guy anyway, in truth. instead, he agreed to a mini-roadtrip to a tiny town about an hour north of bangor: dover-foxcroft...for the Maine Whoopie-Pie Festival. "i'll pick you up at eleven." i got up early and snuggled a sleepy sammy who fell back asleep when i headed to the shower. my morning dance parties in the shower are getting pretty serious, guys. i'm probably going to end up slipping in there one of these days. i slathered on sunblock, pulled on a summer dress, and headed out the door. he pointed out places here and there that were somehow tied to his family or some other memory. the ride there was generally comfortable and, despite this being the first time meeting this guy, i wasn't nervous like i usually am...which is how i know that friendship is all i'm going to want from this relationship. this is a good way to be, truly. we found a place to park and wandered down through the festival. there were pony rides and a bouncy house and other pretty basic games and rides for kids. there were vendors selling usual festival-foods....i learned about doughboys--basically elephant ears. i kept accidentally referring to the whoopie pie as a 'gob' and felt a little embarrassed at the slip-ups. we paid our admission (a mere 5$--it's really cheap to have a good time in this state, america!) with the admission, one could sample 4 whoopie-pies from the slew of contestant bakeries and then, ultimately, cast a vote for the one liked best. i tried a traditional chocolate/vanilla, a lemon-raspberry, a salted caramel and chocolate, and a bourbon chocolate. they were all good but the sugar shocked me like crazy since i've pretty much cut it out of my diet again. since i'd skipped breakfast, i suggested we get some late lunch and then cast our golden token votes. so here's the thing, america. i'm a pretty easy-going lady but when it comes to manners, i have a hard time getting past the hard-wired polite expectations. my parents did a pretty good job. had this been an actual date, there wouldn't be a second date for a couple of reasons. first, when we arrived and started our little meandering trail down to the festivities, a friend of his called out to him. he talked to her for about five minutes before she just introduced herself (for which i was thankful because that was pretty awkward.) as we walked a way when they were done talking, i realized i had no idea who this person was or how he knew her. not such a big deal. second (and this is the deal-breaker for me, right here), when we went to lunch, he spent a great deal of the time texting someone else. i found myself just waiting for him to put down his phone. now i'd left my phone in the car and ordinarily, i probably would have taken a few pictures but that would have been the whole of my cell phone usage in a restaurant with a person i'd just met. after lunch, we went back up to cast our golden tokens. i bought a few whoopie-pies to take home. we were heading back to the car when he realized the little historical society building was open. he has been trying to find some yearbook pictures of his dad (who grew up in the same little town as the festival) so we stopped inside. it's a good thing i'm a pretty self-entertaining person. within seconds, he was being whisked away with one of the archivists while i was left to my own devices for a half hour or so. i got a personal tour of the building (an old train station in the middle of town) and the exhibits ranging from an old doctor's office, dentist's office, old printmaking equipment, and pianos and organs that had been made in the town a long time ago. he had success with the archivist and found a few yearbooks with pictures of his dad and some suggestions on how to find more of them at the library or the school itself. we headed back to the car and made our way home in the late afternoon. i'm glad to have met the guy, i really am. i'm getting a little better at trusting my intuition. the thing about my heart is that it can only be interested in one person at a time despite my best efforts. this fella will make a good friend and, in time, maybe he'll come out and do more things, too. it was nice to go experience something sort of local and kitschy and maine. i enjoyed an early bedtime. the cool maine summer air is perfect for sleeping. i was up again by 830am--apparently this is just what i'm going to do this summer. once that sun is up, i may as well be, too. i had cold white pizza for breakfast and listened to music before finally jumping right into another dance party shower. i felt the salt of saturday's sunshine wash away in the warm water. after my shower, sammy and i headed to the woods like i'd promised him we would this weekend. since it was so rainy most of this week, it has been about 4 days since i was last in the woods. i'm not sure if i've crossed a new threshold as i've entered into the 21st week of my pregnancy but my body feels completely different than it did this time last week. the baby is growing like crazy in there and i think she knows when we are going to go walking now. she moves a lot when i'm in the car and i assume she gets a comfortable position and sleeps when i go on my forest walks. sammy is so good about staying close-by now, sensitive to my needing to stop here and there to drink water, to rest a second. i know his favorite spots to stop, too, and i fend off the black flies while he drinks from the moving brooks or sniffs at some animal trail. we did a nice long walk to make up for the missed days and the sugary whoopie-pies. my tracker showed 3.89 miles and 1050 calories burned...but the best part was the pace! my mileage was down to 26:13/mile. this, america, was probably due to the black fly population urging me on with their bites and buzzing at my face, my eyeballs, my ears, and hair. those are loathsome creatures. even sammy kept swatting at them occasionally. we trucked through the second half of the hike. now, i used to resent the heck out of walking because why walk anywhere when i could bike there? but sammy isn't as young as he used to be and he doesn't keep up as well running alongside my bike like he did years ago. for him, i'm willing to walk. for the little bird inside me, i know walking is probably the best thing i can be doing...so i do it. and i enjoy it, to my surprise. black flies, though? they can pretty much fuck off. i have welts on my face and arms and back from their bites. we're going to have to start getting there earlier and earlier to avoid the nasty biting monsters. so it goes. this was the first weekend that i didn't spend it in monastic silence and that's a damned nice thing, truly. i've been unplugging from the internet a little more each day--for awhile, it was the only tether i had to life outside of my apartment. i'm determined to just start spending more time in the world. so far, so good. debating turning off the cable altogether now that game of thrones is over for the season. tv was killing me for a few weeks there and it sucked up my life in a way that i remember hating so much all those years ago when i got rid of it in the first place. so i've turned off the tv but now i'm just paying for crap i don't need. i'm missing that albany fella a lot...but i'm also being pretty practical as i go about my unplugging. a picture of him here and there is plenty to appreciate but i miss just talking to him. every day i think of things i want to know about him. i'm trying not to bug him too much--the time will come when i won't be able to send messages as readily, either. i imagine trips home, my upcoming boston and beach visit, the week at the beach coming up in september with my sister and parents. aside from turning on my music and listening to audiobooks, i'm not going to want to have my face in my phone, either. still, a handsome picture in front of radio city music hall made me really want to go down to new york city for a visit of my own. as i recall, it isn't such a long train ride from boston to nyc so maybe i'll be able to use my sister's apartment as a little home base for a day trip of some sort. have to get these trips in while the sun is keeping this part of the world warm, right? eventually, it's going to snow here and there won't be any getting out of town so easily and i'll be relegated to curling up with books in front of the fire. those days are coming and i'm excited for them but i'm not wishing away the rest of this summer. company is going to start coming soon. i'm looking forward to visits from october and quasar surprise sometime soon, my mother and rachel on separate visits in august. the black lodge is turning into something more cozy finally. the new neighbor at the next house over is a college student and he needs some furniture so i'll be glad to give him the stuff i don't want to keep anymore. he is a camper and seems like my stripe of person so i'm looking forward to talking with him a little more, anyway. so that's the weekend from bangor, america. it's sunny and summer and the black flies are no joke. your jones is a happy tired sun-tanned bug-bitten lady. xo, jones ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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