She asked me if I wanted to run away and I said yes and so we both packed up some things and some wine and went to a cabin in the woods where we drank in the silence and the birdsongs, the frosty morning and the thawing pond and we built a fire that we sat beside it drinking coffee, writing words, looking up, then closing our eyes to feel the sunshine hit us gently.
We braved the mud of the trail that lead to a waterfall on the first day of spring and searched beneath rock ledges and a thick matte of wet leaves for snail shells and acorn shells and the water fell muddy over the rocks into the pool and down the stream.
I’d say we were gone 28 hours. 28 hours of quiet reflection, dreaming, scheming, laughing, walking, listening and getting our plan straight in our heads before heading back home to the onslaught.
I told my friend all about it yesterday as we walked in the afternoon sun of a world that might just be waking up. We walked past the park and the school, over the train tracks and up past the bank, the post office, the bowling alley, the grocery store, the beauty parlor and then back around toward home again.
After that I started breaking down the broken bed, removing the mountain of stuffed animals and stacks of books from the room that needs cleaned and painted before the new bed arrives. He was gone all afternoon and into evening for a school band competition. He wore his dad’s dress clothes for the occasion. He likes staying up late reading books and playing with legos. When I woke up this morning to look in on the empty room, there was a whole shelf staged with lego creations. He must have done it some time after 10pm. That’s how he rolls.
By the time I was in bed about to fall asleep, all these great ideas and plans I had fixed my eyes upon were starting to melt like an ice sculpture on the fourth of July. Why do you have to make two records back to back? Because I feel like I’m running out of time. Why do you feel like you’re running out of time? Because we all know how this is going to end. How is this going to end? I’m going to be slammed with debt and have to get a job to pay off the records. So why don’t you wait? Because I can’t abide by some artificial timeline that won’t do a darn thing for me. What will do a darn thing for you? I think me. Is it loser talk to imagine the end of the story being an Admin. Asst. position somewhere in the next 36 months? I don’t know anymore.
In the light of day I feel committed to my plan of urgency. My plan of total financial ruin that I’ll pay for for years to come. That sounds like something I’d do. I can do that.