/ Minored in Possession

Today I took a time test of sorts, and to be sure I screwed 6 macro filters onto the camera lens, lest I not catch wind of any undercurrents in the conversational lulls. Because one of the talents I've nurtured is allowing insinuating comments to drift by without checking to see if there are enough lifeboats for everyone on board who stand to drown. And I'm not sure if that is the direction I need to steer this ship.

I trained, it rained. Enough so that you had to run the trail with your nostrils pinched between your thumb and forefinger. I held my breath up every hill.

At dinner, the appetizers were on a side table next to several bottles of hard liquor, some vermouth, some olives. She said she knew how much I liked my martinis. It is so endearing how we own our little habits, we are possessive, and they are possessed. “Remember DeeDee? Even up to the day she died, she couldn't go to sleep without her gin and tonic.” “Mr. Cook is so funny. He is still out there on his porch everyday with his Bushmill's.”

They open bottles of wine and beer and beer and wine and I decline.

“I just can't function if I don't have my...” I look down to see exactly what it is I am holding. “...generic brand diet ginger ale.”

The last thing I want is for them to be uncomfortable because of my alimental peculiarities. There are so many other reasons to be uncomfortable around me, it seems such a waste. I want to say, “This is temporary. I am going to return to my previous habits, so don't wait until I turn away to sip from your drink, don't pour your libation into some ambiguous vessel, for god's sake, don't take the last...generic brand diet ginger ale.”

But I don't know when I'll go back. It's sort of like that friend you said you'd call, and then a month passes, and you think, 'Well, it's too late now.' And then a year passes and you think, 'I wouldn't even know what to say.' And then your entire life passes, and you think, 'I wonder whatever happened...'

Back at my car, I sit near the lake to listen to the last chapter of a story about moths, and it makes me want to become very small and wonder at the marvel of the tiny forests that never rise a hairbreadth above the surface of the earth, and marvel at the wonder of the fragile trilliums, but only for a time, early in spring, well before the spiders and newts have woken and taken their positions hiding behind every stone and fallen willow stem.

You would come out the other end of this habitat entirely transformed, unrecognizable save for only the subtlest of your pre-wilderness habits, so that these are the days when it is important to spend as much time as possible with those who will be there on the other end, that they can return to you your belongings, remind you of your name. Tell you how sincerely you have been missed.