(re-post)
I'm intrigued by how varying routine one small iota changes the flavour and the direction of the day; and the notion that this may be the catalyst to redirect a life.
A requisition for some blood work to determine if my grandchildren are going to be fair or dark haired so I will know in what shades to knit their baby blankets, and a need to have fasted for ten hours before this blood was drawn, had me out earliest to the neighbourhood lab.
There was a line-up so I thought the lab was late; turns out I was early.
Two of the men waiting in line had seated themselves on the floor in the hallway outside the lab door, one doing the Challenge Crossword in the paper, the other just reading a newspaper.
A third man showed up and just stood leaning against the wall.
The lady in line when I arrived was standing, sewing a button on the sleeve of a blouse and then playing some game or arranging some design with buttons on a piece of cardboard.
I was standing and knitting.
The third woman who showed up just stood and waited.
Interesting pattern of gender and activity or not. Uhuh, Uhuh, noted the Observer in me.
Then I commented as a question to the woman sewing – "Multi-tasking?" and she said she was just trying to stay awake until the lab opened.
It occurred to me she must be coming off a night shift with such a statement, a fact she confirmed to one of the lab workers when we were inside.
Soonest in and soonest out. It was still dark enough and wet enough with the mist that often passes for rain in Victoria to stop and notice an earthworm on the sidewalk, glistening in street lamp light, sluggish in the early morning cool, in danger of being crushed by feet or perhaps becoming an early robin's breakfast: I lifted it onto the grass.
I now walk the shifted schedule of a day. Feels neat.