Exhausted, but not yet ready for bed. This hour after partner and child have retired has become a treasured space. Sometimes I write, sometimes spin a record. Often both.
Right now, Tangerine Dream are soothing me with Stratosfear for the hundredth time.
If I can raise the energy I’ll go for a walk. Takes effort, this deep into autumn. There is a feeling of ‘should’—for mind and heart and to get back into the body after being in others’ lives all day. But I probably won’t, tonight. Bed beckons.
Waking, inevitably, I lift my head and see the green numerals of the old clock radio on Cal’s side. I always hope it will be later than it is. The dream of longer sleep. Perchance to have a wee. The delights of middle-age, wherein restful slumber becomes a mythic quest. Unending, never fulfilled. Imagine a time when your bladder made it through the night. Is there a country song about that?
There’s an app on the computer dashboard for clocks. Pick a location, anywhere, and it shows you their time. I have a few set up. A local one for reference and one for the UK, where Cal is from. I know the time difference, but always get confused when daylight-saving cycles shift gear.
Much harder for North America. Different zones. For simplicity’s sake I have two, east and west. The calculation is trickier and not self-evident. My American friend told me she subtracts a day then adds eight hours. But is that east or west? Sometimes I delete the clock and re-install it so that when I pick the city the hands spin backwards to the intercontinental time. Right now, it’s coming up to 7:00am in San Francisco, ten in DC. Time zones to represent my blogging friends. Do I presume too much? Some feel like friends, for sure. Others are more cautious acquaintances. I’d like more, and more depth, but I don’t want any more. Friendships require work, energy, input. Tonight I’m depleted, headachey, chardonnayed.
Sometimes I post a comment and get an immediate response from Portland or Boston. It always feels pretty cool to have this little dialogue across the world in real time. My grandparents used to mail three-inch reel-to-reel tapes to family in the old country. A conversation measured out in months. I remember a bunch of aunts and uncles, the men in suits, standing round a microphone my grandfather had plugged into his open reel deck. He positioned them around the homemade mic stand and did a practice run before the real recording. Bess, take those beads off, they sound like static. I always thought they became more English when they were compiling these stilted messages to their un-migrated brethren. Thinking about the destination of the magnetic tape erased years of Australian twang. Or maybe it was that tot of sherry. Sweet.
Tonight, I could suggest skyping or face-timing to one of my blog friends. What would they sound like? Would I suddenly become more Aussie? G’day mate. Just so they weren’t in any doubt.
I won’t be suggesting a link-up though. They might be disappointed in me or I in them. And we’d have the same laboured conversations about the seasons or differences in word usage and secretly snigger at each others dialects.
Almost out of tape, so signing off now. Love to all of you over there. Hope to plan a trip soon. Enjoy the warm weather!
Time to go clean my teeth. Maybe there’ll be a little orange dot on the bell by the time the ablutions are done. Instant like-ification. Maybe even a comment. But I won’t engage now. I’ll be in better form in the morning, with a coffee, though my respondent will probably be at lunch or dinner or asleep.
Tssssss…
Lonely Keyboards 