Take Yourself Out
There are days that go by that don't seem to slow down. The march of time is a rhythmic but steady one - but on some days, it feels like the metronome has been cranked up a notch.
On a day where my body told me to take more time off before re-starting manual work with a bum wrist (mild sprain of some kind), I had a wild thought. I was already in the downtown core doing some postering for one of my part-time gigs, and I did something I barely ever do - I took myself out for lunch.
In 2008-09, in my rock-band, bar tending Centretown days, there was a Chinatown haunt that I used to love called New Mee Fung. I was introduced to that same place by my friend Skippy. When he first took me there, and squeezed the lime into his bowl, I felt like I had stumbled into a new dimension of vivacious flavour. With a flair for the spicy side at times, I've only ever ordered one thing there over half a decade - #136 - the spicy sate pho with your choice of chicken or beef. Since then, I've only taken a few people to this place, and I'm sure those special folks have felt the simple magic of this basic decor, Booth street walk-up.
Sometimes it can be a chore for me to put my phone away, and to just spend some time alone, but there is something about the forced trudge-pace of winter that makes me accept the practice of me-time. I smelled the uber-fiery broth and let the spicy-peanut, rocket-fuel-injected aroma hit my nostrils. I looked out the window on to the very non-bustling Chinatown street, I sat back in my slip cover chair, and I was grateful for a reflexive Monday moment - and for doing something fun all by my lonesome.
Many, many times in this wild, hypersonic, technicolour life, we can get lost in listening too much to other people - and not listening enough to ourselves. If you don't listen to yourself and care for yourself first, how can you care for others?
Take yourself out. You deserve it.
