Lessons From the Kissing Booth

I woke up this morning wanting to run away.

Before I was even fully awake there was planning inside my head, weighing the pros and cons of Boston and Chicago and Kansas and the south of France, working through wardrobe options and new names. Theme songs. Accents and hairstyles.

The wanting comes in waves, and today I woke up drowning.

So I pulled on my raincoat and walked through the softened streets to the store for champagne and cheese, stopping to meet damp friendly dogs and their owners all along the way. It's the conversations that I have in the rain that are most satisfying, their edges evened out by the mist, sweet and fleeting like a mouthful of something soft. At the park a lone duck stood knee-deep on the almost-beach, still. Watching. It didn't move when I walked up--whatever it was looking for, I clearly didn't have. In my head the planning tumbled like a washing machine with poorly distributed laundry: if I would tell anyone. Should I get a hermit crab or start making butter sculptures.

When I eventually came home, jeans damp around the ankles and rain beaded on my jacket, I decided to stay put for now. Because I had just bought this bottle of champagne and all this cheese, and the things in my fridge weren't going to cook themselves. Because I only just unpacked my suitcases. Because a train to anyplace is not the same as a train to someplace, and someplace still sat just out of reach.