I am watching as 80 year old husbands...

Insist that their wives get up and dance with them. The banjo is sweet. The atmosphere is vibrating with it. Even the voices whip through the air in some special way.

I am not the greatest fan of country music, but sitting in this little cafe in this small town, makes me want it. I want banjo. I even want the nasal voices.

This kind of sound makes me feel like I'm growing out into the deeper world. Into some kind of home that's bigger than houses, or families. I feel connected, though I'm the wallflower. The only interaction I really have here is smiling back at all the old ladies.

I don't understand how the elderly take so much joy in the youth around them. I feel like I could be wearing chains all over my body, black makeup in great circles around my eyes, and they'd treat me well. They'd be happy to see me.

I wonder if the reason they're so nice is that they realize how crazy this time feels. At least for me. I feel so unnatural. So abnormal. So psychotic. So in-between. I feel caught in this bind where I have so much to think about and plan and work on, which exhausts me, but I can't give up, because I'm terrified of what will happen.

In a way, I hate this time. I don't want to. I want to stop. I want to go slow. I want to steep in it. I want to absorb all the good spots...the tangled garden of it. But, there is terror in possible homelessness, and joblessness, and savingslessness, and lovelessness, and all of that, and so my mind keeps running, my body keeps moving, and I am lost to what I could find here in this time.

In a lot of ways, I feel like I'm losing something big lately. My chance at things. Will there be other chances? Other loves? Other cities? Other explorations? Other moments?

I want it all, now. I want to have discovered it. I want safety. OH GOD, I want safety. Security. A solid ground to stand on. I want love. I want sharing. I want time to myself, I want waiting time, growing time, but what if that's all I end up with? Years and years of waiting time, and nothing I've waited for.

Here I am, in the midst of this. Headache coming on. Mocha in front of me. Music around. Banjo still going on, hanging all of it's notes up in the air. It is Spring Break, I am reminded suddenly. I have just started Spring Break. Sloooow down. Here it is, the moment. The soft, country, calm, familial moment. Take it. Take it. Steep.

Here it is.