Contentment.

I had started to write a post this week but couldn’t bring myself to the piece. I mean, I couldn’t think of more than just the first two lines or so and then, when frustration overcame me, I gave in and put my attempts to rest. This blog is supposed to be about the good things, and frustration is not one of them.

This weekend was a good thing, though, that’s for sure. It had the perfect balance of relaxation, exploration, good food, work, and through all of it ran a thread of love.

So when Dennis came home at 4:35 in the morning on Saturday after his day of work, I woke up to greet him as he was bent over the sink brushing his teeth. When he comes home that late at night/morning, I rarely open my eyes. But because it had been almost 24 hours since I’d seen him last, and because he’d left the hallway light on, I decided to wake up and stand in the doorway until he saw me. At which point, he jumped, and then smiled, and then we both snuck back to bed and slept late. I’d planned an adventurous day for us on Saturday so when I woke up, I was ready to get started. 

It began with a foray into Brooklyn, a rarely visited but highly romanticized borough, where we went to Patisserie Colson, where my friend works. We had delicious sandwiches, a chai latte, and desserts to fill our bellies before heading to Manhattan. The ride on the subway took the better part of an hour, which was nice only because we were out of the freezing Brooklyn wind, and by the time we walked up into the sunlight of Manhattan, we were ready to have something to do. We walked just a few short blocks, and one really cold one, to a museum. My mom doesn’t want me to tell you which museum we went to, but this is my space, and so I’ll tell you. We went to the Museum of Sex, located on 5th Avenue and 27th. And there were three exhibits, the first of which was called “The Sex Lives of Animals.” And trust me, at first I was giggling, but by the end I was nearly gagging. Seeing that many animals and that much sex was too much for me. I almost welcomed the exhibit of human pornography with open arms. Almost. 

Watching porn in a museum (traditionally a place of quiet reverence and intellectualism) with forty other people is just about the creepiest thing I’ve ever done. And I felt conflicted: how intimate and personal sex is—and there we were, a bunch of strangers all crammed together watching it on twenty different screens, no one making eye contact with anyone else, giggles from some people in some corner, looks of total bewilderment on others’ faces. Was I supposed to be studying these videos from an artistic perspective? Should I have been appreciating the beauty of all the junk on the screen? (Plus all that audio?!) We spent an hour there trying to be as serious as we could, but I soon realized that although the museum took up two whole floors of a corner building on 5th Avenue, there was no room for seriousness. We left the museum laughing, which I guess is how it should be. We can’t be too serious about ourselves, now can we?

For dinner we had Indian back in Queens. This Biriyani House is just a few blocks from our apartment and makes the best chana chat masala I’ve ever had. (Actually, it’s the only chana chat masala I’ve ever had, so by default it’s the best.) We ate heartily and then promptly fell asleep on the couch and slept solidly there from 8pm until 1am. After stumbling to the bedroom, we slept again until almost 10. 

Today I pledged to do some work. Work included cleaning, laundry, and grading kids’ tests and paragraphs. I went to Starbucks by myself where I sat for nearly five hours and pored over my kids’ writing. It was tough at first, but after about an hour I got the hang of it and was pleased to see their writing skills improving. I love teaching how to write a paragraph and it’s especially exciting for me to see kids using the structure I developed to get them to organize their ideas. It’s so clear to me when kids are using that structure because their writing just makes sense. I was so happy to see many of them use the tools I’d given them as they expressed some very complex ideas in very straightforward ways. So I left Starbucks feeling very happy.

 

Now I sit on the couch again, pledging not to fall asleep here. It has been such a wonderful weekend and it’s come at a great time. This is a short week of work and my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, is just around the corner. We’re going to Albany to be with family, my first Thanksgiving in two years in the States. I love this time of year and I love spending that day with those people. Dennis will join us, too, and so I know it will be a lovely day.