Another April

I was done with the pool by 5:30 this evening and had plenty of time to make dinner, had the vegetables right there and everything, but I had dip and pita bread instead. I got fleece-lined ankle-length slippers for my birthday and have opted for them and my fleece-lined hoodie this evening instead of hauling the heater out as the wind shifts and shudders outside. The time changed over the weekend and it was dark by the time I dipped my last post-dinner ginger nut.

We’ve had a long summer. We’ve had a drought, even, and we’ve had to conserve water. We’ve had a lot of long lazy evenings and a lot of bare legs, but now, apparently, it’s time to get down to business. It’s time for autumn, and then winter, and then winter some more.

This time last year I was in Miami, driving my mom to radiation. The year before that I seem to have been worrying about boyfriends or something. The year before that, too. I had a dream, I wondered if my life was some sort of movie (spoiler: it’s not!), and I went over the hill to the Wairarapa, all those Aprils ago. Before that I lived somewhere where this time of year means spring time, and thought I always would.

It’s better not to sit and ponder, probably. It’s better to write or read a book or do something instead of lose a couple of hours on Facebook and Tumblr and the design blogs. It’s pointless, probably, to think about the past. I maybe am still even slightly too young, for another year or two, to put so much time and energy into reminiscence. Do something, I tell myself, Get up and do something, as I settle deeper into the hollow my bottom has made in this secondhand couch.

I do a couple of things, after all. I put on my fleece-lined hoodie that my mom gave me several years ago and my fleece-lined slippers that my friends gave me several days ago, and think about what I’ll wear to work tomorrow. I drink my tea and wash the dishes. I listen to a history podcast as I go through my painful physical therapy exercises. I put another blanket on the bed and my swimsuit in the laundry. Pointless to think about the past, pointless to wonder what next year will be like, pointless to wonder if I will ever stop having to be reminded that she’s gone. Right now is now. It’s Tuesday night, it’s April, it’s dark early and earlier.


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