I am struck by the fact that it is a Saturday night, and here I sit, musing. (Garth has taken the kids - with my brother-in-law as stand-in for me (thank you, Banks!) - to their school's Harvest Festival. I begged off, having had an "off" day all day.) I have never been plagued by Saturday nights, for which I am grateful. I have known people for whom the dateless Saturday night was interpreted as a judgment from on high about their loveability. Do not be mistaken: I have had my share of anguished concerns about my loveability - I think the 20's are all about that. Those times have just not been especially tied to Saturday nights.
I'm not sure how I escaped. When I was still quite young and impressionable (11), I found these books at the Sharon Public Library by a woman named Rosamund du Jardin (a nom de plume, do you think?). She wrote 17 young adult novels (The Tobey & Midge Heydon series, and The Pam & Penny Howard series: The lovely twins! So different - and so alike! What boy gets which twin?) which seemed to largely be about navigating the treacherous water of going steady, which meant you'd always have a Saturday night date, but it implied you were "serious" about someone. Reading these books in 1972, it was clear that Midge, Penny and the gang lived in a different world than I did, and mine had some flexibility that theirs might have benefited from.
So, instead of celebrating the harvest (unless it counts that I'm here making apple butter) and instead of seeing the haunted house that Kami helped work on (she assured me it wasn't very scary), I am sitting by an open window with the cool fall air wafting in, hearing bikers and walkers talking quietly with each other as they pass by - and enjoying my Saturday night.
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