This Christmastime, I've got a stretch of five days off (three paid, even). I go back to work Thursday--and today, Tuesday, is my first with nothing planned in the daytime.
In the evening, my old friend KG is coming over for dinner--leftovers. [Update--the rump roast never got moist, but drowned in gravy, it's not bad. Still, I'd never buy that fatless cut again.]
I should get some paperwork done, but I'd sworn I'd break out of my usual 3-mile radius, even if just to go see a movie downtown.
Downtown has not reanimated after Covid, when many workers moved their work home and businesses closed.
But the movie theater downtown, the Main, is on the Mississippi River parkway--it's a great location for a walk before or after.
What's showing?
Aw, darn--Aki Kaurismäki's latest, Fallen Leaves, doesn't start for a couple weeks: "A love story set in modern-day Helsinki, two lonely souls in search of their first love meet by chance in a local karaoke bar." I always love his flat way of telling moving stories.
Hm... Ferrari?
Men who make machines are not a specific interest of mine, but the cast looks good--Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz.
Okay, yeah, I'll do that, I'll go see a matinee.
Going to a movie may not seem exotic, but I'm trying to break the inertia of the past few years, when (besides Covid limitations) I've given almost all of my energy to work.
Technically, it is a part-time job. It probably doesn't
sound like it, and it certainly hasn't felt like it––it's been my brain's home world!––
but I only work 24
hours/week.
What if I treated it like a part-time job?
What else would I do?
At the very thought, my brain freezes, hunching down like a small rodent on the prairie sensing a coyote.
"What? Am I? To do?"
It's okay, tiny frightened brain!
You don't have to do anything, not nothing. At all.
Only, you can do something... if you want to. We can get a warm milky drink at Starbucks on the river after the movie. Would you like that?
Tiny frightened brain perks up.
A warm milky drink in a holiday flavor?
Yes! Hazelnut, or peppermint or.... EGGNOG!
Eggnog coffee latté grande, or something.
Okay! Action Plan ACTIVATED: I am taking myself out for a movie, walk, and holiday latté.
(Just a flat walk though—two days of hill walking—yesterday with Marz, in the rain—has made my butt muscles sore!)
That may not seem revolutionary, but getting myself up and out––for a spot of nothing much––is a bit revolutionary for me.
It feels like suiting up and stepping out, into the planet's atmosphere.
Tiny Frightened Brain (TFB) is like Guy (Sam Rockwell) on Galaxy Quest:
"Hey, don't open that hatch! It's an alien planet! Is there air? You don't know!"
[16-second clip here]
But TFB is Not My Only Brain!
I'm-Not-Worried Brain is like Fred Kwan (Tony Shaloub), who sniffs the air, shrugs, and says…
"Seems okay."
this reminds me that i need an action plan. my world has gotten so small here in the midwest. no museums as such. we do have an art museum but how often do they change the exhibits........i realized this when i spent a week with my brother and sister-in-law in northern california. so many places/things to see but all the driving to do so. give me public transportation and let me travel!! east coast i'm looking at you again! tfb!
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