Dolce Far Niente

I just crawled up the stairs to the cloud room after falling asleep on the TV room carpet for fifteen minutes. Several late-ish nights, a lot of rich food, and two very hard dance classes this weekend have finally caught up to me. A couple of hours ago at Renee’s I was all HEY WHERE’S THE AFTERPARTY LET’S GET BACK IN THE HOT TUB WHY YES I’D LOVE ANOTHER SLICE OF CAKE and now I am having to slap myself to keep awake long enough to floss my teeth and to tell the internet what a nice long weekend I’ve had.

Sometimes holiday weekends are a little intimidating to me for some reason. Especially in the summer. I still haven’t given up my dream of being Invited To The Cabin For The Weekend, but in the meantime I don’t ever seem to have any exciting-from-an-outside-perspective plans, ever. Mostly I just end up hanging out, which is fortunate for me as hanging out is my most favorite thing to do in the whole world.

I did a lot of it this weekend. I hung out in houses and apartments, in restaurants and in lounges. I hung out with men and women, kids and adults, old friends and new friends. I spent some time hanging out in my kitchen accompanied only by the twelve zucchini with which I was making a tart and I spent some time hanging out in Capitol Hill and running through the rain. I spent quite a lot of time bellydancing, although I wouldn’t call kick-my-ass class and today’s bhangra fusion workshop hanging out, necessarily, unless you count the water breaks where, in the former case, a single tear was running down my cheek because of the soreness in my hips and glutes, or in the latter, where I was all bouncy and excited and going “This is the best dance ever…two hours is too short!.”

There is something very luxurious about puttering around with enjoyable people and not doing anything in particular, what Italians call dolce far niente: taking the babies for a walk in their strollers, putting another tempeh burger on the grill, watching a ridiculous bellydance video or two, sitting on the steps taking advantage of a sun break, gossiping about crazy people, discussing bikinis. This is why my Weekend At The Cabin fantasy persists, and why I think heaven, if there is a heaven, is essentially a big house party. I like having projects and activities too…but sometimes that just feels too energetic. It’s better, sometimes, to just be with your people and tell ridiculous stories and practice dance moves and eat cookies. I love that I did hardly any errands or chores this weekend, that I wasn’t rushing from place to place for four days.

And probably this was the last weekend for a while that I won’t have an agenda or a plan or a massive to-do list, so I’m glad I took advantage of it when I had the chance. You never know when you’ll be able to just sit around and sweetly do nothing.