The Earrings Said Go

Tuesday night. That specific category of Tuesday night where you've already changed out of your work clothes, you're in the leggings, the couch has begun to make its case, and then something in you just quietly overrules it. I don't know when I last went somewhere on a Tuesday that wasn't yoga or climbing. I'd gotten a text about a thing, small, low-key, a neighborhood spot, and I'd written back 'maybe' in that way that usually means no. Then I put on the burgundy top anyway. The earrings went on last. The earrings are always the decision. Once the earrings are in, you've already agreed with yourself.

The place was exactly what it promised to be: small, warm, wooden surfaces, people not trying too hard. I sat at the bar for a while and just let the room be the room around me.

mid-thought at the bar

That thing happened where you go somewhere without knowing what you want from it and then you realize, maybe an hour in, that this, the just-being-there part, the not-needing-it-to-be-anything part, was what you actually wanted. I thought about the prints still leaning against the kitchen wall. I thought about Gerald. I thought about nothing for a few consecutive minutes, which is harder than it sounds on a Tuesday.

I walked home later than I expected.

heading home

The fall air was doing that thing it does in late September, colder than you remembered from the last time you were outside, slightly damp, smelling like someone's dryer vent and wet leaves. I pulled the jacket on and thought: I am going to feel fine tomorrow. And I did. That's the whole update. The earrings were right.