A party! A real party!
We gathered outside, not because we had to, but because it’s spring and everything was warm and beautiful today. It felt so normal that when I went to pick up some dinner at the co-op I almost felt weird putting on a mask.
The kids played in the as-yet-unplanted raised garden beds. We ate crackers and cheese and cookies and grapes. I petted a cat named Dale. And I discovered that the friend who invited us (to celebrate her art opening) knows a whole bunch of people who I know from very different circles, and some of them know each other.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, really, that I am not the center of the universe and all lines run through me, but it felt truly amazing, like when you see your teacher at the grocery store and realize they have a whole life outside of school. (I don’t actually ever remember having that experience, but I can compare it to seeing a reenactor from the North West Fur Post in street clothes and feeling like I ought to pretend I didn’t notice him.)
This was another day of opening up to the possibility that I haven’t met all the cool people in Grand Marais yet. That, yes, this is a small town, but there are more than a dozen families, more people than I’ve spent the last handful of years with. It feels rich and summery, like getting ready to go to camp and feeling all the mysterious possibilities of new friendships that form in an instant and exist in a whole new world.
After the party I met up with another friend and we drank fancy lemonade (with dandelions and violets!), then had tea (with white pine needles and maple leaves, among other things), and finished it off with Lagavulin scotch (which paired quite well with bougie brand cheese puffs). Her corgi puppy made a few attempts to use me as a chew toy, but eventually settled into my lap– the most wonderfully cozy weight (that occasionally lunged for a dropped puff).
What a start to the summer! What a day in and of itself!
The funny flock of ducks were out on the water again and they honked their funny calls as I drank coffee and wrote on the deck this morning. When I got home from all my socializing tonight the thin curve of a crescent moon was behind the nearly-bare branches of the trees, and the stars were bright overhead.
Yesterday I wrote about Snow White. Tonight I’m thinking of Sleeping Beauty.
I’m so happy to be awake for this.
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