Q & A: Regrets

I was going through old papers and found a rumpled, marked up list of questions from a Q&A sesh from years ago. Most of the questions I answered back then, but I don’t remember answering this one: Do you have any regrets?

Yes, I have regrets, and they hang on the wall in my mind like a display of decorative plates. Sometimes I dust them off; sometimes I sit and stare at them and feel depressed (though I find all decorative plate displays depressing); often I rush past them on my way to better and now.

I know it’s trendy to say “I don’t have any regrets because I love where I am now.” I love where I am but I still have regrets. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. I think regret is part of the human experience – that if you don’t have regrets, you’re either not old enough or not self-aware enough.

{feel free to leave more Qs in the comment section and I will A in later posts}

Out, out, damn cough…

I got sick. A sore throat. And when I say sore throat, I mean forest fire in my trachea. I don’t think I’ve had a sore throat like this since high school. Sorry, niece, for the next eighteen years, I’m coming to visit a week before your big birthday party.

When I first moved to the boonies, I missed delivery food on a daily basis. (It doesn’t exist here, nor do public transportation or gay bars.) That longing faded, cropping up once a month or so, then faded even more – at this point, it’s nearly forgotten. The only time I really miss it is when I’m sick.

I have all the ingredients to make hot and sour soup, and I have a fantastic recipe memorized (I make it vegetarian and use dried mushrooms), but do I have the strength to stand upright for twenty minutes while I make it?

No!

Delivery foooooood….. I miss you……………….. sniff.

Country Cheers

The best place to eat in town isn’t actually in town, it’s in the nearby town of Hyattville. Hyattville, population 75, is… 30 minutes away? Maybe 20, maybe 45? I truly don’t know, exactly, because when you go to Hyattville, you go because time isn’t an issue. You go because you have no rigid schedule, no looming deadlines; you go when it truly doesn’t matter how long it takes.

Timing does matter, though, in regards to when you go – because this joint is only open once a week. Which is brilliant, really, in a town of 75, because when it’s open it is packed. Wall to wall people, and everyone knows at least half of the rest, and the people who run the place know your order without you having to say a word – if you’ve been there at least a handful of times and always order the same thing. Which I do: gluten-free pizza with black olives. (YES! This tiny place in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere Wyoming serves gluten-free pizza! This is all the proof I need to know the gods love me.)

A few of us went last night, and we always take the back route, which is a dirt road the entire way. You might pass one or two other vehicles, but sometimes you don’t see anyone else on the road at all. You will see deer, elk, eagles, antelope, and the light is always gorgeous. No matter the time of day, no matter the season or the weather, the light is always beautiful, bouncing off the rock formations and shifting the color of the red dirt road from bright orange to dusty rose. And on the way home, the darkness is complete, no lights from houses (there are none), no lights from streetlamps (there are none). Just stars, a zillion of them.

Messy Can Be Gratifying

I’m at my niece’s first birthday party.

More correctly, I am outside in the backyard with my sister’s dog and a chocolate cupcake.

It’s madness inside.

Parents, standing shoulder to shoulder, have formed a ring surrounding a dozen tiny humans under the age of 2. It is so loud.

It’s not madness. To those inside, it’s totally normal.

I am the mad one, sitting outside a party talking to a dog.

I am not mad, either. I just need a small break. The size of this gathering is equivalent to 15% of the population of my town.

Madness/normal, either/or, all/nothing…..

Collectively, we are so attached to a good/bad binary.

And there is no good/bad binary!

Based on some comments on my previous post, I feel the need to clarify my opinion: receiving immediate feedback after sharing online does not fit this mythical binary. If I didn’t want to read comments, I would disable comments. It’s quick, it’s easy, and I’ve done it before.

But.

Doing so disables the two-way – nay, multi-way – communication so specific to the internet, which I find special, interesting, and worthwhile. It can be overwhelming… and extraordinary. It can be annoying…. and an honor. It is not either/or.

It is challenging to navigate. Full stop.

And now… I’m going to go back inside and watch babies roll around in sweet potato, and toss a balloon into a bouquet of tiny hands.