Weekend breather

Saturday morning.

Awakened by the door buzzer. Jehovah's witnesses. They want to show me a video.
"Uh," I mumble, full of mouth-guard and squinting at the light edging through the black-out curtains to guess the time. "I'm not up for it today. Thanks."
Probably not going to affect my chances at heaven. They only get 144,000 and the place is probably already full.

Everything hurts. Not from over-exercise, but from long days of intense work, no time to bicycle or run, and short restless nights this week. There is a heaviness in my legs and belly. God, I must be getting old to feel like this in the morning. I've missed the 10AM yoga class.

Willem sits across from me at the breakfast table, vaping his 70% propylene glycol, 30% vegetable glycerine and "pas de nicotene". A smoker since the age of 14, he's been scaling back on the nicotine for months. No pressure...but he wants to quit and he might just make it this time. This is his waking-up ritual. I'm itchy for information and stimulus but we don't watch the news because it interrupts the gradual process he has for coming into his body. Later, when he's arrived, we'll go for a run.

It's been a strange week. Yesterday, I sat at lunch across from the woman who has made my life hell for the past year. She was all smiles and interest. Is it fear of me that makes her pretend or, perhaps, she is disarming me in advance of a strike. In any case, I smile back, unwilling to let her guess my distrust. "Yes. Thanks. I'd love to have a bite of the cheesecake."

I've been working the unreasonable "on call" hours that (among other things) make the job so difficult. Early morning reports, late night phone calls and meetings. In the morning, as I prepare the daily report on the bus, I notice that I stop breathing. I'm very tired. Nearly two weeks ago I finally disclosed to upper management the workplace abuse that has harangued me for nearly a year - and others for nearly a decade, I feel simultaneously relieved and afraid. Relief makes me tired, and the fear no longer has the power to shake me. I told myself once I wouldn't be driven by fear. But when you lose everything once, you understand the probabilities of the impossible.

Willem and I take a run through the woods after Willem fixes us porridge for breakfast. Porridge: a Fairy-tale food. Willem's Goldilocks porridge has to be the "just right" ratio of 1:4 oats:water.  He doesn't like cinnamon or raisins but definitely a dash of salt.

We run and walk through a day of rare sunlight and I start to feel good. The trees are slender and green, smooth trunks gaze nakedly at us, their summer clothing lying dried and crumpled at their feet. A flock of fat grey pigeons rise up as we approach, then settle into the carpet of brown and gold dry leaves. We walk past Japanese gardens, closed for the winter, and Willem does push-ups on a bridge while I stretch my knotted hamstrings. We wend our way to his parents' house where his mother greets us with a huge grin, feeds us tea and bread and cheese, tahini with honey, and shows me video of a concert in Bulgaria where she performed on the accordion and enthusiastic dancers with long skirts and headdresses dance. I love this lady and, like everything else broken and tentative in me, some fragile hope creeps out of hiding and says, "this love. this acceptance. this warm and welcoming environment. may I keep these?" Who knows the answer in my own heart but hers is an unabashed, "yes!" and she squeezes me tight as we prepare to leave.

At home, eating sushi, there is a knock on the door. Upstairs neighbors whom I invited for drinks in a moment of good intention and high stress. Can they return in half-hour? Yes. Quick clean, shower, and foraging for food and drinks. Willem still has half-a-bottle of rum; there's a bottle of cheap wine, and a bottle of Vin Santo which I got during Corinne's visit to Italy in 2012. I pop popcorn, and we chat into the night.