Ever since we moved (back) to Manhattan at the beginning of the year, Mark and I have marveled at our weekends.
Until this year, we travelled 250 miles (roundtrip) every Saturday (weather permitting); first when I still lived in Manhattan and Mark still lived in Overland Park and I would come up Thu or Fri to see him for the weekend, then when I moved to Olathe and Mark moved in with me, we travelled to Manhattan so I could teach my Saturday students. We enjoyed the time together, we called it “Manhattan Day” and did “Manhattan” things – go to Hastings for coffee and internet, walk through Aggieville, visit Krystallos (one of my favorites shops there), go for a short walk, and so on.
We both enjoy driving, so we usually split the commute: I would drive to Manhattan – unless it was raining; I didn’t like the way the car behaved in the rain so I let Mark do the driving then -; he would drive on the way back. Mark had a Sprint mobile broadband card which allowed us to be online even in the car, and we made good use of that. We often said that while we were looking forward to the day when we wouldn’t have to make that commute anymore, we did enjoy it for what it was: a day together.
We put a lot of miles on the car, and between the two times two hours driving plus several more hours teaching, “Manhattan Day” took up an entire day. There was really not much else that we did on Saturdays. I suppose we could have but it would have felt crammed, and usually we were tired by the time we got back.
Now that we are here in Manhattan, Saturdays once again belong to us – actually, not “once again” but “for the first time ever”. For the first time, we have a real weekend, and we treat it with sacred respect: I don’t teach on Saturdays anymore, and unless there is an event, every couple of weeks, we keep Saturdays and Sundays completely open on the calendar.
Every Saturday evening now, after a beautifully relaxed and usually quiet day, we smile at each other, and say, “… and tomorrow we get another day just like today!”
It’s not that we don’t do anything on Saturdays: yesterday, for instance, we took our recycling to Howie’s (first time for Mark; I told him that now he’s a real Manhattanite), followed by a trip to one of the coffee shops for some lemon bread and carrot cake in the process of which we got caught up in the St. Patrick’s Day parade and general masses of people which – even though we are not “people” people (meaning we are perfectly happy by ourselves) – we enjoyed; next to Glenn’s to drop off some materials for an upcoming concert in the process of which I ran into fellow teacher and friend Bonnie who invited Mark and me into her studio because she wanted to show me some books in the process of which we chatted and discussed and generally caught up because we hadn’t seen each other in so long; much later back home. Lunch, some work in the garage which is still quite full of boxes, but thanks to Mark not overflowing anymore; quick trip to Eastside Market for some flowering plants; and the rest of the afternoon was spent outside, potting plants, building a temporary, make-shift fireplace from old bricks we had found in the backyard, burning some old branches the wind had thrown down.
A busy day, yet utterly relaxed and peaceful and – at home. No more driving two hours and spending the day away from home.
Life is good.
