The Perfect Weekend
It wasn’t a new idea, just an old one that had been usurped by decades of life getting in the way of one of the most important events in her life: the perfect weekend.
She was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes when she closed her eyes, shivered and whispered to herself, “Decades of working in office groups, teams they called it, endless boring contentious meetings; the frequent business travelling and standing in airport lines only to be jammed and sealed in air-tight flying tubes; two years of volunteer teaching, team meetings, and side projects; five years of volunteer county garden projects; teaching adults, teaching teenagers, teaching children, bookclubs, HOV meetings, political marches, crowded Sunday services, choir practices. It just didn’t stop, the pounding pressure of trying to conform to prescribed healthy living.”
Safety and physical comfort led her to live in what she called a warehouse for old people. Officially, it was called independent living for seniors, but to her it was a place where much of daily life was consumed in groups–group eating, group TV watching, group game playing, group painting, singing, meetings, a place where she feared the loss of real independence and her sanity.
Staring at the soap bubbles on a plate, her thoughts were, before all that other stuff,there was a time I instinctively knew how to detox my brain, and refresh my soul: on a Friday, right after work, I’d go to a book store and buy books, shop for groceries, drive straight home, bolt the door, cover the TV, unplug the phone . . . oh my gosh, I had to unplug a pink princess phone . . . I’d close the drapes, no lights in the living room, just candles lit in the kitchen and bathroom, maybe play some soft jazz and soak in the tub. Afterwards, I’d put on a long soft satin night gown.
She remembered how she would stand at the kitchen counter with the glow of a small candle light on her face and munch on a sandwich or a salad, a dessert, fruits and nuts that she washed down with a glass of wine. She remembered how she would crawl into bed caressed by fresh linens, turn on a small light, and lose herself in a book until her eyes tired and her brain closed down. Sometimes, after shuffling to the bathroom, she would instead curl up on the sofa with her book.
As she reminisced that delicious feeling of quiet peace on those perfect weekends, she thought, by Sunday morning, I’d find myself with a cup of coffee, gazing out through the patio glass door watching birds, gazing at the sky, maybe even people. No ringing phone, no TV chatter, another candle-lit bath, maybe a little Chopin, another book and just solitude where my thoughts floated freely undisturbed by the noisy outside world. I can still do this.
(Word count 479)