There's something nice about repeating to yourself,“It's my day off. It's my day off,” as I did all day yesterday, and then spending the day like it really is something special. The whole afternoon in SPR, which still has a warm place in my heart from the early years. The manager still calls me by name, and they still sell great big espresso drinks for (foreigners-only) nine yuan.
Karen and I with our vastly different personalities, still find plenty to connect over. I am excited to tell her about the new hot spring resort on the top of Fengya Mountain, knowing it's her kind of indulgence. We sit in fat sofas beside the window, ignoring the cold, gray, half-rainy day. She's just come from three weeks in snowy Lancaster, PA and says the fresh comparison make Sichuan winter seem all that much worse. Her mother had complained while she was home about one overcast day, and Karen replied, “Mom, this is what it's like everyday where I live.”
I'm grateful for how the weather matters less to me now than it once did. I still grumble at the dark, damp winters, don't get me wrong, but I am capable of going out, getting things done, and being happy even, when it's gray and cold. I add layers, put up my hood. I eat more, sleep longer, and spend more time on the computer . . . guilt-free. And when sun shines in Nanchong, or I have a few weeks in Virginia, the beauty is all that much more startling. I expect Vancouver rain to be more than tolerable, backed by mountains and pierced through with sunshine as I've heard it is.
1 comment:
So true. Enjoyment is so much more real when you have gone without for a long time. I think of when, in H'burg, I take a night walk, all by myself. I feel like shouting with the excitement of it the whole time . .
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