What is A Weekend?

First, let's start off with the fact that I had one of the most amazing weekends in the history of weekends. To quote The Dowager Countess, What is a weekend? A variety of things, but this one was about discovery of the best kind.

The weekends give us a small chance to check out from the rest of our busy lives, or to rev up the usual routine. For the last several years my weekends have consisted of mundane tasks, then graduate school requirements, and the occasional fun or ambitious project. This is not one of those instances where I tell you a detailed break down of my weekend. Besides I cannot imagine that many people are THAT interested. It's not your business what I did even if you were interested; it's how I felt about what happened that is paramount.

Before I go too far though, I have to give another shout out to Lizz Schumer (entire blog link to the right) and her recent blog post The Luxury of Happenstance,  unbeknownst to her, this ideology was the very catalyst for my own weekend. I read her post on Sunday evening, and was just gleeful. I appreciate her thoughts and who she is.

Now back on track...

I am a planner, a bona fide I NEED to know what is happening and when, sort of planner. I hate last minute dates, I feel like I never look as good as I could've looked if I would've known a day or two sooner. I need to reserve or set up rides to and from the airport weeks in advance. I begin planning for a weekend where I'll be just over state lines WEEKS in advance. I need to budget, think, and be prepared for...whatever. Perhaps it's because I am anal about travel, but there is, I believe, a fear of getting all it wrong. There is this horrible feeling that I won't spend the time wisely, or that I won't have a good time, or that something awful might happen, or worse...that I'll desperately need something that I don't have with me. OH! The sheer unadulterated horror of it all. Whatever would I do?

Seriously...what would I do?

This got me thinking of the automatic, 'yes'...2 of the most important days in our lives, we don't plan, and we usually have no hand in them...when we are born, and when we die (I said USUALLY, not referencing those who choose to end it all) are automatic yeses. If these two days can happen, just by chance...then what is wrong with having an air of spontaneity? What am I afraid of? What if I just took a step back from my life long enough to let it happen? What happens when you spend a few days just saying, "yes" and letting life happen?

This weekend I went in, with no plan, no expectation; just a 'yes' to life on my lips...no more, no less (wait...and clean underwear, you really do need both, that I won't let go of). During this excursion into life, something rather simple was suggested, "You're a writer, I want coffee, let's go to a cafe", I said, "Yes". I too thought it was cliche, but 'yes' was on my lips, and clean underwear under my skirt. The walk was nice albeit a tad long, it allowed me to experience a few things that I might not have without it. The cold air, the way smells cut through it, the way the sun sets in between buildings and the colors they all form can make a brisk walk...anywhere something incredible and memorable.

One of my graduate school advisors, Ryan Boudinot, told me that in order for my characters to be real I had to assign them real experiences, real tasks. How could I do that when I have been so shut off from the world? I have to be real first, and I haven't been real. I spent a long time just existing, but hardly living. It stifled my thinking, stinted my creative brain. Saying yes to this weekend, yes to my life will give me more to write about, more to feel. Let me expand on that...

The image that I mentioned before...the sun setting. The close to each and every day has an entirely different look than the one before it and the one that will come after it. Try and duplicate the beauty of a sunset, either in paint, description, or memory...you can never do it proper justice. It is immeasurable beauty. Then again it is the human condition to challenge beauty...you may feel that the sunset in the mountains beats the one on beach, or that the sunset at the beach beats the one from glaciers of the arctic; for me, this time, the city beats all.

Unlike the breathtaking back drop of nature, the city has been created by human hands; much altered by business, construction, and destruction. In a city beauty is driven by corporation and economy; supply answering demand. When buildings are blueprinted, placed, and developed...I am sure that the architects and engineers take a general interest, or thought, in the direction a building should face. The beauty of the building, planned, possibly duplicated...the beauty of the sunset, never planned, never duplicated. The beauty of the sunset enhances the beauty of the city's buildings and after two chilly walks at dusk I can attest to this, unequivocally. At dusk the buildings merely become the blank canvas that the sun paints itself on.

Taking the same route to and from said coffee shop each evening allowed me to see the world through the same eyes in different ways. The sky was a pinky peach one day and a muted fire orange another. Some of the clouds did that puffy cotton ball thing one day while others did a streaking thin smattering of white and gray the next. The reflection of the sunset magnified. Mirrors of sunsets blasted across the city. One reflected then another, and another and so on, until the sunsets and the unplanned beauty for the show was done.

After the show, once the sunset was concluded, the buildings lit up for their own show. Humans challenging beauty. A mechanized plan in which the man made lights try to compete with our memories of the sunset, the sun light, and the stars. The buildings don't even come close. We've been mesmerized with man made light since electricity came to the World's Fair in the early 1900's; Tesla turned on a light and the world got hot and bothered right along with him.

          "Why so quiet?" That's what was asked of me.

          "Oh, just thinking about buildings, lights, sunsets, and Tesla."

          "You know about Tesla?"

          "Yes," I said. I said, yes.