Visitations and Appropriations

I had a wonderful weekend - chock full of interesting encounters, primarily with two of my good couple-friends.

First on Friday, despite the snow and ice, I had a wonderful Greek meal with my good friends for whom I often cat-sit. They picked me up from the train station, brought me to the restaurant, paid for my meal, and then drove me home. We talked and laughed and caught up. It was great.

On Saturday, After spending much of the morning digging my car out of the train station - with the help of my wonderful roommate and a random good-Samaritan, I decided I was unable to continue with my plans for the day. When I called my friend and her husband to decline their invitation, my friend called me back and offered to pick me up and bring me to their house. So she picked me up, allowed me to mingle and chat with her friends all night, let me stay there, fixed breakfast for me, took me to a yoga class, and then drove me home. It was also really, really great.

Besides the outstanding generosity of my friends, what occurred to me as I was thinking about the weekend yesterday, is that I've gotten awfully good at appropriating other people's lives. I sneak into their existence, settle in for a bit, try it on for size, and then return to my daily routine.

It's quite fun. You get to experience how people do things - mentally marking the spots that you might do things differently, remarking how nice some parts of their lives are, experiencing them at their most relaxed moments, and convincing yourself for a day or so that you're a temporary part of it all.

If it's a couple, you also get to witness their interactions. That unique love that exists just between them. It's quite lovely.