Last Friday, Justin and I went to the movies at 9:30 pm, far too close to my usual bedtime. I thought twice when he asked me because of my “no movies after 8 pm rule” – I’m notorious for falling asleep in AMC’s reclining chairs. Plus, we’d just come home from riding our bikes to the river, stashing them just before the low-head dam in Old Town, and walking our packrats upriver, only to float back downstream. Slightly ridiculous, quite fun, definitely silly ‘cause for all that work we rafted for about 20 minutes, but those 20 minutes were glorious. Surely that was enough of an adventure for one day, and now he wanted to go out for pizza and a movie?
The 34-year-old me knew that pizza that late would be bad news, and I’d have to drink a soda (for the caffeine obviously) so I could stay awake, and how would this all affect my sleep schedule, tomorrow’s workout, my general overall health and well being that runs on a daily regimen of 8+ hours of shut-eye, a morning walk, electrolyte powder, decaf coffee, and a tidy, all-encompassing to-do list?
Eat protein, drink a gallon of water (filtered), use retinol, put money in your retirement, buy organic, make your bed, meditate. Life has started to feel a lot like “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity,” co-managed by yours truly and Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket. Spoiler alert: it’s not stress-free. I sort of thought my life would look more like a spontaneous stroll through the farmers’ market in a sundress, tearing off hunks of sourdough while the Mamma Mia soundtrack plays in the background.
When I was 22, I lived with a host family in southern Italy for a few months in the summer. Antonietta and Osvaldo were in their late-thirties with no kids but a dog named Maria Luce and a cat named Paola. Almost nightly, Osvaldo would meet his friends at the neighborhood bar on his walk home from work. Antonietta would bustle around the kitchen and courtyard, a lit cigarette slowly burning in the antique ashtray resting on the windowsill. A friend or two might swing by to chat, to steal a drag. Osvaldo would return home and insist on that friend staying for dinner: “Siedeti, resta, mangia.” He’d fix them a plate of steaming hot Zucchini Parmigiana and refill everyone’s wine.
They’d stay up late talking in the courtyard, on school nights, on work nights, on any night. They didn’t seem concerned about their productivity, skincare regimen or missing a day at the gym. Neither was really building towards anything as far as I can tell, except a comfortable space to sit and laugh and live – a life that tasted as good as the parmigiana.
More of this, please. How can I get more of this?
When we got to the movies, the parking lot was nearly full. There were groups of middle schoolers hanging outside waiting for their parents to pick them up, as my friends and I did two decades ago - gosh, has it really been that long? High schoolers buying Scary Movie 3 tickets on first dates, parents and kids queuing up for popcorn and soda because what’s a movie without the treats? It felt good to see life happening, to see people being together, to see people being unproductive, inefficient, standing around, laughing, eating.
I’ve been hanging my solar shower on the branch of the cottonwood out behind our airstream. Hidden from view, I take a gloriously warm, 3-minute shower. Not because we don’t have a shower in our airstream - we do - and at the gym. But because it’s something different and the first time I did it, I felt eccentric and wild and like a kid again. I felt like that 22-year-old version of me who was more than willing to stay up too late and drink too much wine and only half understanding the conversation happening around me, but wholeheartedly enjoying every minute of it.
The AMC and my 5-gallon bag of water hanging on a branch as I stand on a yoga mat to avoid the mud are a far cry from an Italian courtyard in the city’s historic district. But I don’t think that’s the point. I’m not trying to get back to the courtyard; I’m trying to get back to the embrace of whatever’s in front of me. I’m trying to dump the 2026 prescription pills down the drain ‘cause I think it’s making me sick – despite the accompanying hashtags of #health and #wellness. I’d like my life to be a little more unmanaged, unmeasured, and maybe slightly unhinged.
This coming from a lady who lives in an Airstream with her musician husband in a friend’s backyard. More bohemian, STAT!
I’m remembering that the pursuit is not a more optimized morning routine, but that it’s just to feel like you’re 13 or 22. Or even 34. And when you feel it, you must grab onto it and dance with it around your kitchen, singing loudly out of tune with a loose cigarette dangling from your lips, but mostly for the aesthetic, Antionetta style.
So maybe I’m writing this as an invitation to myself (and to you, should you ever need it) to interrupt efficiency, to reject leveling-up, streamlining, revamping, refining. Let’s make this paperless promise that if we forget where the magic lives, here’s how we’ll find it:
Drink from the hose. Stay up too late. Dip your toes in the ditch water and don’t think about where it comes from. Sell your Oura Ring; who needs all that data anyway? Eat a burger with a side of fries. And a Coke. Leave the bed unmade. Have friends over to play darts on a Tuesday night. Go to the movies.
