Falling into an Old Habit

           I am very much a creature of habits, right down to the smallest detail. My sister says that it is because I live alone and have done so for a very long time. Too much time in her thinking. That could be true. Take this early evening for example. It is Friday night, so I walked from home (I could drive but that is not part of the habit) to Ye Olde Inn for dinner and a few beers. It is what I often did as a teenager, the beer being added once I turned became of legal age and looked it. Since I graduated from high school (a short walk to Ye Olde Inn), and got myself a job, that gradually over the years of hard work became a good job, I have done this every Friday.

           I am returning home now, taking, as usual the same route back, the short route. I could almost do it with my eyes closed (if there were someone to tell me if there was a car coming when I cross the road). I hadn’t always taken this route. For about a year I took the long way walking back home, but the reason to do that is long since gone, disappeared from my life completely.

           I know exactly how many of my typical steps will take me to get from the curb I was approaching to the one after that. I could walk that distance with my eyes closed and not over or under step the mark.  I think I will make a game of it. And my sister tells me that I’m boring! Now I have to think of a prize for winning the game and a penalty for losing it. I know. If I make the predicted number of steps without going over the next curb, or not quite making it, then I will continue to take the short route. If I go over the curb (hopefully a car won’t be coming – I should be able to hear it), or walk short of it, I will take the long route.

           I reckon that there are 67 steps between the two curbs. That’s the number I counted when I had nothing else to occupy my mind one day, maybe two. Here goes.

           I should be concerned that someone might see me doing this on a Friday evening, but I know that I am known and gossiped about as something of an eccentric anyway.

           Sixty-one, two, three, four, five six, WHOOPS…I trip over some obstacle and fall onto the sidewalk. It turned out to be a stone on the grass beside the sidewalk. I can remember seeing it a few times before, and noticing that it had a mark on it that looked like an arrow.  As I got up, a light attracted my attention. It was three houses down along the long route. The location made an impression on me, as it was the former home of the one and only girlfriend of my teenage years - Diana. She had moved out of her parents’ place many years ago, but still, the light was coming from what had been her former bedroom. Curiosity, and the bet that I had made with myself made me shift to the long route in my walk home.

           As I approached the house, a heretofore locked vault in my memory banks opened wide. I remembered tossing up handfuls of cranberries from their garden at her window, seeing the drapes opened, then the window, and finally, wonderfully, her face shining down on me, followed by a conversation we had to keep down reasonably low so as not to alert her parents to my presence, and her acceptance of it.

           I stood in front of that window, wondering who was on the other side these days. I had heard that Diana’s parents had moved from the place about a month or so now, committing themselves to a retirement/long term care home. No one I talked to knew who had bought the place, or it still stood empty..

           The cranberry bushes were still there. Now that is temptation. Why not? There were no cars in the driveway, so I reckoned that there was no one at home. I picked some cranberries from the bush, hesitated for about 10 or 15 seconds, and then began tossing a few handfuls of them at the window with the light on, Diana’s old window.

           There was no response at first. I knew that I should expect that, but still there was a sense of disappointment. But then… The curtains were slowly drawn, and the window opened. I could not believe my eyes, thinking that my brain had over-ridden the images that my eyes were giving it. The person at the window was Diana. My eyes had it right. She had aged some in the last 20 or so years, but she was still easy to recognize and to appreciate. 

           Would she recognize me? Maybe just the cranberry tossing would do that. She yelled out “JACK!. It’s you. It is good to see that while you have aged some in appearance, you haven’t matured all that much. Knowing that it’s you, and that you are probably following an old habit of walking home this way, I reckon that you are coming back from Ye Olde Inn. What do you say”

           I replied, “You’ve got that right. I know that I am very predictable, as always.” There was silence then. I didn’t know what to say, just that I wanted our conversation to go on and on into the night.

           She took the initiative, as she always used to do. 

           “I also reckon that maybe you have sobered up a bit with all the walking you have just done and would be willing to go back to the Ye Olde Inn and imbibe some more, as we both play catch-up. What do you say old man?”

           I spoke with no hesitation, “I surely would.”

           “Stay right there. I will be down there with you in less time than it would take you to gather another handful of cranberries.”

           She was true to her promise, although I didn’t pick any berries to measure the time. Taking the initiative yet again, she gave me a big hug, which I returned with enthusiasm and a few tears. 

           Then we gave the same answer to the question we both fired at each other, “Are you married?” With that concern over with we took each other’s hand and walked back to Ye Olde Inn, firing questions and answers at each other in rapid release.

           The longer way had turned out to be the best way.