It's been a long time since I had a night to remember. An evening where every moment was wonderful, pure, exciting and insightful. An evening that was changing. Tonight was that night. It wasn't anything dramatic, wild or crazy, but really positive and special.
It began when I finished painting the wall beside my bed chocolate brown. It's a beautiful warm brown that makes me feel cozy and quiet when it's time to go to sleep. I admired my work, my hands covered in tiny dots of brown paint and quickly washed my hands of it as I headed off to Kensington Market to meet my favorite girl, Miss Yu, to arm ourselves with veggies & wine for dinner.
We wandered the market gathering everything we would need to complete our evening: a carrot, zucchini, white button mushrooms, spinach, green & yellow beans, white potatoes, garlic, thyme, a bottle of pinot grigio, a package of chocolate mokas and vanilla soy ice cream.
When we get back to my apartment, Miss Yu opened an object covered in newspaper to reveal a pot of basil. It smelled delicious and with a little bit of TLC and some good luck I hope to keep it that way! I let Miss Yu work her magic in the kitchen, her playground - chopping vegetables, flavoring with spices, making a vinigrette, essentially creating perfection. Her hands are like magical wands that transform any food that she touches into a perfect 10. She brilliantly suggested a late night picnic in the park which immediately boosted our wonderful dinner to an 11.5 out of 10.
After 2 mugs of wine, several mosquito bites and a delicious soy-moka ice cream sandwich later it was time to head home, fix up our make-up, indulge in some well-warranted girl talk and head to the point of the entire evening - checking out Dr. Payne & the Disease at Clinton's Tavern.
Initially we found ourselves fighting the urge to conform, and casually bobbed our heads to the music of the opening act in accordance with the rest of the room. After much urging from the rather humorous MC we finally worked up the courage to hit the dancefloor. Finally, dancing - how I missed you, dancing. But it didn't stop there.
The moment The Disease starting playing, my body was wired. Hot-wired to dance for the next hour and a half straight. We were bobbing, and busting out moves left, right and centre. It was as though the only way that I could actually hear the music was if my body was moving and I could feel it in my bones. It was electric and the crowd loved it. I loved it, it was the best.
When it was over, we met new people and then continued our evening elsewhere after deciding that sleep was most certainly not going to happen anytime soon and that some decompressing was needed. We rode our bikes (on the way being verbally accosted by both a drunken man cycling and a belligerent Brunny patron) to Philosopher's walk, where we sat and discussed the merits of technology and value of positive thinking over a bottle of water. It was absolutely perfect. The stars were out, the air was cool, the wind had settled and most of all it was calm.
Finally a moment of calm where it was ok to just sit and think. What a novel idea.
We enjoyed our peace for a good half hour and then went our separate ways, myself coming home to reminisce about what a lovely evening - potentially the best evening I've had in a long time. It's amazing how when you get accustomed to doing things a certain way, you forget how good the other ways are too. I did things I haven't done in ages: drank half a bottle of wine, danced all night long, sat up on the ledge at the faculty of music and stayed up even later here writing about it.
So what have I learned? Change is never bad, it's just different. And if I want to get really postive, change isn't different, it's good. This feels good.
I think I'll leave it at that.
