‘Same as the blues?’
‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, the blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re sad, that’s all. But the mean reds are horrible. You’re afraid and you sweat like hell, bu you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don’t know what it is. You’ve had that feeling?’
‘Quite often. Some people call it angst.’
‘All right. Angst. But what do you do about it?’ ”
Not ten minutes after I posted that last gloomy entry (thank you for putting up with me), the other sweet barista here brought by a hot chocolate with mounds of whipped cream and caramel and nutmeg and cinnamon. She leaned over and put the mug on my table, saying with her cute Polish accent the three best words a broke American student abroad can hear: "it's for free!" I nearly cried again. It was wonderful hot chocolate and healed pretty much everything that was troubling me.
Wrote more, sipped more, bought some Diet Coke and went back to my apartment. Then Dublin did something wonderful. It sent the good yellow-vested workers of the City Council (or fairies, or elves) out to put this outside my window:
A Christmas tree of my own. Perfect.
And that's my window where I am right now, warmish and drinking my tea. It's not necessarily Holly Golightly's answer to fixing the mean reds, and I don't know if there's even a Tiffany's to have breakfast at in Dublin, but I'm pretty happy with it all.
Nineteen days left! Ready for me to come back?
1 comment:
So that was a quote out of Breakfast At Tiffany's, Monica?
Quite perfect. I thought I'd read that book before. May be time to read it again.
See? See?? Look for something grand to come when mean reds are visiting!! A cuppa from a new friend. A Christmas tree. Thanksgiving with friends in a strange land that you've gotten a little bit used to. It's one of the laws of the universe, if you keep your eyes open and give your heart some room to breathe.
And we will see you ever so soon!
Love you so much...Mama
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