"Maybe Rome For Election Night Will Be Different This Time?"

Two years had passed since I was at a particular coffee shop I went to yesterday. I was there to meet some new friends to discuss my experiences with psychedelics and alternative journeys. But being in in a public setting where people were typing away on laptops and drinking $8 coffee drinks was jarring.

"Why would anyone outside of a big city leave the house to sit in a coffee shop and work?"

The Heather of 11 years ago would have agreed with their logic. Hell, even the Heather of seven years ago - during a return life to to Boston - could see their logic. Part of living in a big city is getting out of your dwelling and taking in some life through an or so of sitting and sipping.

I explained to my two friends that I left the house very little - the exception really being only to teach or take yoga or buy groceries. To get cherry plums and pink flowers.

"What about The Loft (the local art house cinema - at which I am an upper tier donor and get invited to free salon evenings, screenings, and can see movies for free)?" one asked.

I admitted the last movie I had seen there was Oppenheimer, almost a year ago. And before that, I think the last time I had been there was a year earlier for a screening of Congresswoman Gabby Gifford's documentary - which I attended because she and her husband, Senator Kelly - were attending too.

"There's little incentive to leave," I said. "But I wasn't always this way."

"It feels like we jumped to a different timeline. And we only now realize it. But I can't tell when it jumped. Was it 2011? Maybe 2013? Possibly 2016? Maybe 2020?"

These are all significant years for me. 

My friends were convinced it was 2016. Election night.

Hmm, I thought for a brief pause.

"I was in Rome that night. My friends and I had decided we wanted to be the fuck out of the states for Election Night. We were intending to celebrate in Rome with wine and international coverage of the election."

Celebrating we did not do. 

The new friends recommended I head back for this year's election, with the hope of undoing 2016's energy.

"We're too far down this rabbit hole," I said. 

Also, I don't believe in undoing the past. 

If anything, I prefer to lean into the shifts from it. 

Or sit inside and integrate the shifts, as is clearly my preference.

But then... It has been eight years since I was last in Rome. That's the longest I have gone without visiting. 

Maybe it is time to go back?