Not a Dr. Seuss story

We had finished the tasks of the day and were lying on the bed frame. A song came on, playing low, but sliding into the moment as if it belonged, like white snow resting on the limbs of trees. I found myself drifting back seven years in a moments time, when we went to a Counting Crows concert after S had returned from New Zealand.
Signs that I am nearing thirty years old: Upon meeting a new person I have developed the odd habit of maneuvering the conversation towards a discussion of the weather. Invariably I feign interest as the new person tells me about their dog, cat, love of books or birding, until I can finally get in a word edgewise about brisk wind. “I’m from California,” I always say, expecting them to nod knowingly. “I hate the cold.” I cannot stop it. It has become such an ingrained habit. I am essentially Pavlov’s dog, except my dinner bell is whining about temperatures under fifty degrees. I suppose this is how you get as you age. You begin to find the things that you really love, and those you really hate, and talk about them frequently.
I remember the dark road, and the stream of lights along the freeway. I remember the softness of palm touching palm and the steady beating of my heart.
I’ve been reading a bit of Michel de Montaigne of late; the great French essayist who was tragically given the name of a twentieth century woman. The great Montaigne who would often have his own lines quoted back to him without ever realizing it. It is Montaigne’s legendary inability to remember what he’d written that lies at the heart of the book, “How to Talk about books you haven’t read” by Pierre Bayard. Anyhow, Montaigne’s first essay is about idleness.
I’d like to think that I write in fragments because it is the way I experience the world. Like a piece of large glass dropped from a great height.
I’ve been thinking about you of late, now that the sun is getting colder. How you used to say to me, “I love that we have four seasons here.” And I’d smile back as though I was listening because I liked to see your lips curve into a smile.
Of late I find myself cheating when I am doing sit-ups. Just who am I cheating? I suppose that any sports coach worth their weight in camels will say, “You’re only cheating yourself.” I cheat myself at a lot of things. I could probably kick my own ass in poker by cheating.
The concert ended. We wandered through the streets of San Diego in the warmth of June. We got lost from the group, and held hands in the dark while we looked for the lost car.
On Idleness
Purity of mind and idleness are incompatible” Mhatma Ghandi

I don’t think I’ve any earthly clue what idleness looks like in the twenty first century. Perhaps my whole life is based around the pursuit of idleness.
The condition of perfection is idleness: the aim of perfection is youth.” Oscar Wilde
The wind was warm at our backs. You remember the strangest things in the middle of songs. It seems absurd that to think that I am the same person that I was seven years ago. Certainly that could not have been me. How strange that it was.
A cold wind is blowing in from the East. In the morning it will be cold. In the morning it will be winter. In the morning I’ll meet you in the street and tell you that I’m from CA. We’ll pretend that we’re strangers and start things all over.