I’m still vibrating from this house party I went to over a week ago… it was to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of some very cool people we know. TWENTY years. It feels like an almost impossible amount of time, but then, Martin and I have been together for nearly that long too. Sometimes it feels like but a blip of time. Sometimes time passes as slowly as non-flowing molasses.
These friends of ours have also been renovating their house for the past eighteen months, so in some ways, it was like a “big reveal” night, for anyone who hadn’t been inside their house every week, like I have. But, on party night, when your place is all dolled up and looking extra beautiful because your crap is all put away, and your pretty things are artfully arranged and displayed, it basically makes everyone who comes over want to go home and throw everything they own away and start again. Your friends might even want to take to their beds for a few days to weep over all the pretty as I nearly did. Man, that house is looking beautiful.
And when such a house is crammed full of people, sipping on whiskey sours, and nibbling on well-marinated grilled beef satays, bouncing and bobbing to really loud grungy music of our youth and ripping it up on the dining room cum dance floor… well, that is an excellent party in the making. We totally got way, way down. And somewhere around 2 AM we stragglers wandered downstairs to their freshly finished basement space, replete with a well-appointed music room my friend’s rockstar husband made for himself, and we got to jamming.
The word “hilarious” does nothing to describe that scene. We all nearly wet our pants laughing.
One of our friends sat behind the drum kit, and drunkenly professed, “this is the coolest I’ve ever felt in my whole life.” And it was only kinda true, since he’s pretty badass to start with… but this is what 40 feels like for us: we’re a bunch of overgrown kids with kids of our own at home, slumbering in our houses-with-mortgages, with pricey sitters sitting on our couches, watching cable and using the wireless, while we sit behind drum kits and stand in front of microphones, belting out Violets by Hole, because everyone remembers that song, and it’s basic and dirty and classic, and just go on take everything, take everything, I want you to… It was a beautiful, ridiculous, refreshing moment in time that felt as great as taking a massive lungful of air after being under water for a long, long time, only it’s not all clawing and desperate – it’s more like a feeling you hadn’t realise how much you relished until it arrived.
That kind of feeling tends to leave a lady smiling for days.
And possibly the best part of it all was being out in the world with Martin, which is a rarity, it seems. There’s something quite excellent about watching one’s partner in life wander around at a party, outside of your own all-too-common four walls, wearing a new shirt with less buttons buttoned than usual, and great fitting white jeans… it’s observing someone anew. We don’t tend to sit next to each other at dinner parties, or remain close, holding each other’s hand all evening long. Nay, I much prefer to catch glimpses of him chatting with various people, eating foods and smiling. And laughing. All at once, he becomes new to me again… and against the backdrop of a different house, with beautiful things in it, and beautiful people around us, and really loud music, I see how handsome he is. From across the room, I am completely drawn to him again, like a magnet. He makes my stomach feel nervous when I look at him, but only in the best possible way. I gently caress him on the bum when I pass by. (I do that with everybody anyway, but for him, it is different – I squeeze him.)
In the dim light, we danced together. We haven’t danced since… I really can’t remember when. His neck smelled of a new fragrance he’s trying out these days, which added a touch of newness. His mouth tasted like whiskey. We danced. We smouldered. It was delicious. Every single bit of it.
We rode that good feeling for days and days afterward. We *might* have done the same to each other a little bit too. (Okay, maybe a lot.) Delicious, I said. That’s the by-product of a great date for you. Heh.
Another great thing is being inspired again to revamp our space at home, and infuse it with some newness… or at least put some pictures back up on the wall. Which I did. And I’m digging our house again, thanks to a bunch of re-framed images, including one of Michael Jackson from 1971, back when he was still black and cute and normal-looking.
Life feels good these days.
G.G.
