Turn on a song that makes you dance in your kitchen. Write something.
Image description: a delicate oval, egg shaped seed held in my hand. It is smooth, a very light brown with tiny bits of avocado remnants, and a slight cut where the knife marked it as I was freeing it from the fruit it resided in. It is beautiful. It felt weighty in the palm of my hand.
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There are a few days every month where a small curmudgeon settles into my heart. I assume it’s tied to my menstrual cycle and hormones are whatever…but no matter the cause…there he is, every month. This curmudgeon hates joy, and loud noises, and questions and being touched. He’s a grumpy jerk and I don’t particularly like him. He makes me feel like I’m overly sensitive and nothing, absolutely nothing is good enough for him. I gave him coffee this morning in the hopes that he’d let me get on with my day. That I’d be allowed a gentle adventure with my partner. But he woke up early this morning and urged me to write a part of my novel. I did. And then he wanted me to go back to sleep while my partner showered and got ready.
I woke, late. I felt out of sorts. I don’t actually think I have a grumpy curmudgeon living in my heart, but it helps me to personify my feelings because then I can distance myself from these feelings, and make it humorous.
So today. I did not want to dance in my kitchen before I wrote this. I felt oppositional to my own gentle urging.
But I turned on a happy playlist and asked my partner to dance. They did not join me but did watch me do a tiny groove to George Michael’s Freedom…which is a catchy, but very strange song.
And then I saw this avocado pit sitting on the counter like a small but perfect egg, and realized that seeds are just eggs, and my mind started to unfurl a multitude of thoughts and the curmudgeon slinked back into the room in my heart where he goes when I start getting whimsical.
Whimsy is my antidote to my inner misanthrope. So I just held the avocado put lovingly and asked my partner if they’d like to go on a small adventure.
So we did. And now we are back. We saw a small river. I had a delightful lunch in a place where someone was having a large table birthday with about twenty people, and only one of those people was a four year old. And the rest were about at least thirty to eighty years her senior. And I could tell that she was about at the end of her listening to adults talk about mortgages, and drawing peacefully. They gave her a piece of cake and all the adults turned their focus to how she was only eating the icing. Imagine having twenty people comment on how you’re eating. And staring at you. Like a small zoo animal.
I was waiting for an explosion from that table, my inner curmudgeon could sense it coming. The adults at the table seems oblivious to the fact that with every teasing comment the four year old was getting closer and closer to her limit.
The scene reached its peak when she yelled “NO!” And the rest of the restaurant got quiet.
It was in that moment I went into my purse and found a whale sticker I made, with a tiny witch riding the whale, and a sea of polka dots surroundings the two characters.
I had finished my meal, we had paid, and I walked up to the table and asked the mother if I might give her small human a sticker.
I said to the little girl that I was very impressed at how patient she’d been at the table, and how impressed at how she’d used her voice to get the noise to stop. And I gave her the sticker. And I think that amount of whimsy also diverted what could have been a scolding from 20 adults, and turned it into a strange and magical moment.
And then we left.
And we found a gorgeous gallery full of colourful paintings by two men who’ve been in love a very long time, and we got to listen to such wondrous stories, and I left with a handful of cards and a print of a painting I adored.
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I wanted to talk about my yesterday too. I’ve separated this part by asterisks so it is easy to see that a new storyline begins here.
I want to write about the delightful conversation and walk I had with my former student. But I’m going to do it on a day when my curmudgeon is safely tucked back in his room for the month. But this is a reminder to myself that I have more wondrous things to write about. Including ducks!
I hope your kitchen dancing was fun. Feel free to let me know what song you chose and what it inspired you to write.
Heart,
Wake