From the Cat to the Cafe

I was laughing right in her face! I couldn't help myself, it just seemed so incredibly ironic. All I could do was laugh. It was one of those full body laughs that comes up from the middle of you that youcan't help doing; when you try to not laugh, but the laugh sprays outmid-word and overtakes an otherwise serious conversation. I was almost choking. She's crying, I'm laughing, she's looking at me horrified that I could be acting so completely different than I had only the day before. Before she threw a tantrum over a pillow that wouldn't stay inflated, before she was blurted out that my sandwich in Yarmouth was more important than remembering to bring her Muesli, before she reminded me again about the weight of jar of jam, or again how I miscalculated the distance from the Cat to the Cafe (I know I'm leaving something out). And then the coup de grâce when she dumped me for taking too long on the computer to write my blog! "I'm leaving you and I'm not coming back. I'm going to see the national park, that's what I came here for". Um...OK. And she was gone. She took her stuff, paid her portion of the tab and she was gone. And there I was...exactly where I'm supposed to be. I could feel the laugh percolate it's first bubble deep down inside. She was gone. Exactly where I'm supposed to be. Backpack, paid the bill, out the door, gone. Exactly where I'm supposed to be. Another bubble...

The guy at the coffee bar seemed to know the area pretty well and I sat on the stool next to him to get directions to...I wasn't sure where I needed directions to, it just seemed like the thing to do; get off a boat in a distant town, get dumped, get directions. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. He had met her, and had a little insight into what had happened. He'd seen her pay the bill and leave as did everyone in the front of the cafe. Bubble Bubble. Then ten minutes after making her grand exit, she reappeared in the front door, backpack and all, asking me if I'm ready, exactly where I'm supposed to be. Bubble, Bubble, Glub...

When we came back inside after talking for an hour on the bench outside, I told the woman behind the counter that we were having kind of a bad day, and asked if it was OK if we camped out at the table in the corner while we figured it out. She said "we're open 'til 11:00pm"; it was noon.

Is it me? Do I bring this on myself? Well, sure the answer is a resounding yes, with minor caveats, to both questions. The main caveat being, I don't think it's me! I really don't. So here I am, sitting in a really cool hostel in Bar Harbor, with a really cool bunch of really cool people, thinking about my really stupid predicament. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. What put me here is what I need to examine in myself. My impetuous and impulsive nature that seems so drawn to the shiny object in the grass. So firmly rooted one minute, then so completely upside down and tossed into the air the next. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Bar Harbor's nice though. M and I are going to see the park today. Exactly where I'm supposed to be.

By the way, I'm Bob, and I have a BLOG.

Bubble...

~B