TAKIN' A BATH DAY

Bridge in Bath, April 2006

When I was living in Seattle and working only half time, I had Fridays off. Normal people had to work, and I felt like every Friday was a sneaky sick day, and I treated it like one. I called them "Ballard Days." I would go to Ballard and just hang out all day, sitting in the cushy leather chairs in the wine shop with a book, window shopping at the hipster art shops and boutiques, or playing on my computer in coffee shops. Sometimes I'd meet someone for ice cream, or go for a walk by the waterfront, or take photos. Those days are what I think of when cheesy magazines remind me to "take some personal time" or "give yourself a treat now and then." Which of course I'm already doing if I'm reading a cheesy magazine--that's another thing I did on Ballard days. I'd buy some green-living, permaculture or home design magazine and curl up with it all morning, or take it to the coffeeshop with the sunroom in Fremont. So anyway, pretty perfect days and at the time, guilt-free, because I was able to live on the half-time job and and no real reason to need more than that. And I was still doing lots of theater at night, so I felt like I was keeping busy and productive overall.

This school year has been a little like that. I had to go to classes, work in the bistro, and do all my coursework, which involved piles and piles of reading. But most of my time was mine to organize as I pleased. So if I needed to take a walk to clear my head, I could. If I decided to sacrifice a full day to wander in the yuppie waterfront suburb, I could. I just had to get my work done in the allotted time.

Now, my school life is over, and my flexible self-driven research project will soon be done, too. Soon I'll be back in the real world, hopefully with a full-time job. And most likely my time will be scheduled for me. No more flex-time. So I'm trying to enjoy it.

Today, I went to Bath with a colleague of mine to conduct an interview with someone doing sustainable food supply chains work with an NGO. It was great--we got some names and anecdotes to lead us to the next stages of our study and learned some of his ideas for solutions to complicated problems. Also, we had lunch at the all organic, local, seasonal restaurant we had tried to go to when Corey was here and couldn't get a table. (yep, it's been on my mind since April--I walked straight to it without a map.)

Then my colleague left, and I spent the rest of the afternoon having a "Ballard Day." It was rainy and cold, but when isn't it here? Bath has beautiful buildings, all made of the yellowish smooth "Bath stone." I wandered through charming but fairly standard boutique shopping areas and trolled the used book stores for something to read on the train ride back to Cardiff. I lingered in the tiny one-room "Book Exchange" and talked to the eighty-something year old man about Thomas Hardy and Raymond Chandler. I wandered by the riverside and the cathedral and touched the sweaters in the fancy fashion shop. I had some coffee and checked my e-mail in an internet shop by the train station, and then I dozed on the train ride home.

Oh yeah, and I almost got run over by a bus. Early in the day, before the interview. It's hard to explain how it happened if you haven't seen their assinine system for street crossing here. Suffice it to say that from my side of the road, I was looking at a walk sign and walking toward it when a man on the corner yelled at me. I stopped and turned to him, thinking he was joking or mocking me or just being random (I couldn't hear what he said). I think I heard a horn and I turned back and there was a bus two feet in front of me. It had taken a left turn and probably was going very slowly anyway, but still, it seemed to me, and apparently to others around, to have been a close call. I wish I could describe the man who then came bounding over to introduce himself as my "black knight in shining armour." All I can say is that he was black and friendly and dressed kind of brightly. The fact is I can't remember well enough to make it a compelling story element. I'm sort of assuming he had a Caribbean accent, but I can't remember. Anyway, he came over, shook my hand vigorously, and gave me a hug. And I have to say I needed one, and was grateful for it.