Peace of Drizzle

After the stickiest, most blech week, we finally got a little rain. Not much, but still. So a couple of hours ago, I stuck on a suite, dragged the old plastic webbing pool chair into the middle of the lawn and stretched out in the drizzle with a mason jar full of bourbon and lemonade. Ahhh!

Yeah, sometimes it’s the simple things, right? I felt like I was 16 again, only then Ronnie and I used to have to sneak the bourbon. And in those days, I sat out in the sun, not the rain. We used to drench ourselves with baby oil to sit out in the sun. Ronnie always undid her straps, but I used to love getting a tan line – it made me feel tanner and more glamorous to see that teeny stripe of white on my shoulder. Now I can’t remember the last time I tanned. First I got out of the habit, then I heard so many horror stories that I made sunblock my best friend. Now I guess I’m lazy. Even with the fake tans, you have maintenance or you just look like you maybe ate too many carrots. Stretching out under a drizzly sunset, though, there’s no fuss. All you’re going to get is wet, and you always have to shower after laying out anyway so, perfect, right? I cooled down from all the humidity and let everything just melt out of my body. At least that’s how I was visualizing it. Every bit of stress dripping off my fingers and toes with the water -- totally relaxing. Or maybe it was just the bourbon.

I was hoping for maybe some kind of revelation. If I were in a movie, there would have first of all been some very cool background music. Then I would have suddenly jumped off the chair with a fast cut showing I’d had this great idea and was putting it in action. Or else while I was sitting out, something would have happed, like a gorgeous man crashing his car into the tree in the road and then I’d drag him out of the wreckage and we’d fall madly in love. You know what? Considering my track record with men, maybe it’s just as well that that all I got was a little wet.

After maybe 20 minutes or so, I came on in and had my shower. I’m still trying to figure out why I feel so peaceful, because if I could then maybe I could repeat it sometime when I get restless. Or maybe then I could turn myself into a life coach like Cory Lake. I mean, is that a great gig or what? How do you qualify for it? Has been rocker with four marriages behind her, and still alive and – bourbon aside – relatively sober. Who could be a better life coach than me?! I’m sure I could fit it between volunteering at Have a Heart and helping Leonie in the winery tasting room. Just joking, you know. But not all the way. I think I really am ready for the next part of my life, and I’m still enough of a dreamer that I’m hoping maybe it’ll be something great.