[continued from previous entry]
Funny things have happened in this life of mine when I've gone places with no real expectation beyond a nice time. For instance:
a.) In 12th grade, a few days before turning 18, I accompanied a friend to a performance of a musical given by the school's teaching staff, anticipating nothing more than a few laughs. We arrived at the auditorium to find females sitting in our seats, the one in mine a year younger than me. Our eyes met, it was as if I'd been struck by lightning. That woman who became my first passionate love interest, that chance encounter turned my life inside out.
b.) A couple of months into my first semester at college, a friend mentioned she was heading over to the school's theater department to declare her major, asked if I wanted to come along. I shrugged, figured what the hell, soon found myself in a meeting with her and the department director, wound up declaring theater my major, spent far too many years working as an actor. (Often, the theater world being what it is, working for free or close to it.)
c.) One wintry morning in January, 1999, I came across an ad for cheap flights to Europe, Madrid catching my eye (not a place I'd ever thought about or dreamed of visiting) for some reason. I followed an impulse, booked a flight, found myself there in the city center one evening in February, being struck by lightning once again. Within six months, I'd returned to live, exploring a city and country that felt like home.
On the surface of it, nothing that dramatic happened in Killington. G&S headed into the women's locker room, I ducked into the men's, finding myself surrounded by a bunch of kids, two or three adults, all speaking with English and Irish accents. (Could be that the continually-weakening dollar has turned us into a prime vacation spot for U.K. folks.) Dumped my gear in a locker, found my way out to the pool entryway, noticing a hand-printed sign on the wall reading something like "Pool: 94°, Hot tubs: 104°."
Steps led down into a narrow channel of water, crowded with kids. A few feet along, vertical strips of plastic formed the barrier between indoors and outdoors. I stepped through, warm water swirling around my legs, found myself suddenly out in the long, slow Vermont dusk, the mountain rising skyward off to my right, the darkening sky spreading out overhead. A brisk breeze blew, English and Irish accents filled the air around me, the day's last light shone soft and clear, unmistakeably a winter twilight. The effect of all that colliding sensory input: a subtle feeling of disorientation of a strangely positive variety, me feeling a smile take form on my face as I waded ahead into deeper water.
I turned a slow 360°, water up to my chest, me taking in the surrounding scene (kids cavorting, groups of adults talking in variously-accented English or trying to corral children), saw G&S waving as they advanced from the entryway. They headed straight to one of the two poolside jacuzzi/hot tub enclosures (at the same level as the open pool, separated from the rest of the olympic-sized space by tiled walls), I followed. We weaseled our way into a free corner, me settling back against warm tiles, warm roiling water making my bod happier by the minute. Directly ahead: a spectacular view of mountain and sky, daylight fading to the point that headlights from trail groomers shone out from two different points near the skyline. Steam rising from the water, cold moving air on my cheeks, my ears taking in a surprisingly dense mix of sound (jacuzzi, voices, breeze). Sensory fullness.
I took it all in, my body buoyant in the surging water, constantly trying to float surfaceward (me deciding that handles on the submerged tile seating shelf would have a bitchen addition to the tub/jacuzzi's overall layout). After a while, S. offered me her place directly in front of a water jet, I tried it out. Loved the feeling of the warm water flowing around my torso, but found its pressure augmenting my body's ceaseless surface-direction drift. I finally moved aside, switching places with G. And as nice as the bubbly tub was, I gradually realized that my body was urging me to return to the pool, found myself going over the wall in a kind of slithering dive, back to warm, calm, now uncrowded water, floating on my back, open sky above (now going dark).
[continued in next entry]
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February foliage -- Montpelier, Vermont:
España, te echo de menos.
rws 4:40 PM [+]
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