Samsara

Samsara is a terrible first-date film. I highly un (non?) recommend it. A better first-date film would be absolutely nothing. Again, don’t watch a film.

I’m feeling antsy. Stir-crazy. While dining at my friend Joanne’s house last night, I told her and my friend Laura that I might tear out the front door at any moment and drive off, wheels screeching. It’s just that I’m aching to travel, I said, and I may need to board a plane. Stat.

Joanne: Can you wait til dinner’s over? Cause I made an awesome pork dish with mushroom sauce and I’d love for you to at least sample it.

Carolyn: I don’t like mushrooms.

Joanne: You lived with me for a year. How did I not know that?

Carolyn: Two single ladies + 365 days of never once so much as turning on the oven = 0 knowledge about each other’s food likes and dislikes. It’s simple math.

Joanne: Regardless, can you please stick around til dinner’s over?

Carolyn: I guess.

It was at this point that Joanne informed me that if I took off she’d be right behind me. I’m going with you, she said. Don’t leave me! What about me? Laura asked. I want to go too!

It might be the fact that I’m still longing for France and Spain and any number of countries yet unknown to me. Or it might be the Internations meeting of global minds I attended on Thursday or Linger’s round-the-world menu I tasted on Friday or the nonverbal guided meditation on the wonders of the natural and human world, Samsara, that I saw on Sunday. Or the two hours of silence during the Samsara date I went on and the awkward after-date “bye-bye,” which made me question why in the hell I’m dating at all.

Maybe it’s the make-no-mistake I’m-right-here-in-my-world Denver sameness. I don’t know.

What will I do?

And when, for God’s sake, will I ever learn to like mushrooms?