Perfect Timing

It still amazes me that there are certain "things" that can totally clear your mind of all that is going on in the world. These "things" could be pictures, songs, thoughts or any number of other items. And so often it seems that these "things" show up at just the right time.

Case in point. I was sitting on the bus this afternoon (class was cancelled - WHOOP!!!) thinking about everything that was looming on the horizon - the holidays, work, hurricane leftovers, a new president, a crappy economy, finals, a kid - when a song came on my iPod and completely took all of these thoughts out of my mind. And ironically enough, I did exactly what the title of the song said to do: Drift Away.

The song I heard is not the original, but it's the one I prefer and the one that takes me back to that T.G.I. Friday's in Latvia with some great friends. All I could do was smile and recall how we spent a couple of hours walking around Riga. I was in a bad mood then too (after a tantrum that I still quite regret to this day). All that changed when we were paid a visit by a butterfly (I know that sounds cheesy and childish and whatever else you may be thinking, but I don't care). As weird as it sounds, it totally brought me out of my bad mood. Here we were, walking down this path, killing some time until dinner when a butterfly landed on Jessi's hat. We thought it was funny at first and took some pictures. The butterfly took off and we thought nothing else of it...until it showed up on Bree. And then on Matt. And then on Kyle. The thing was curiously attracted to our group. I'm sure that it was because we were in its territory and that it was simply crapping all over us to "mark" us, but it was cool nonetheless.

On Jessi's hat

On Bree's shoulder

On Matt's hair

On Kyle's fingers

After our butterfly encounter, we went in search for the restaurant that we would be eating at the following night. It turned out to be a unique restaurant (as described by our guide book) that used garlic in EVERYTHING it made. Now, I like garlic and I'll spare you the details, but the garlic ice cream pushed me over the edge.

After finding our next evening's meal, we went in search of the current evening's meal which proved to be an extremely difficult task. Riga is an old city, full of architecture from times past but it is extremely modern. I enjoyed the old town feel, but was deeply disappointed in the modern techno influence that dominated (Riga has become a favorite stomping ground of British bachelor parties; we had a bachelor party group on our flight going to the Baltic states). We generally had a policy that we would try to eat at "authentic" restaurants in the places that we visited and attempted to adhere to that policy while there. However, after several hours (yes, literally hours) of searching, we finally settled on T.G.I. Friday's at 11:30 PM.

It was in this restaurant, in the 6 person booth in which we were impatiently waiting for our mozzarella stick appetizers, that Uncle Kracker's rendition of "Drift Away" came on. Without any prompt, the 5 of us (Kyle was in the bathroom) busted out singing the chorus ("Give me the beat boys and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock 'n roll and drift away") because, let's face it, we are the noisy Americans. But hey, we knew the song and we knew the words and it was one of the few things that we understood in an ex-soviet country so why not? As it turns out, one of the Latvian servers at the restaurant jumped in with us and started singing along too. After the song was over, we managed to talk to him about where he lived and how he liked Riga. He was born and raised in Riga but had made the decision to leave because of it's modern, techno-ish dominance. I think he said he was going to move to Sweden to be with his girlfriend or something, but I don't fully remember.

I guess my point is that I know that life is about living for the future. But it seems that sometimes, we should live in the past, if not for a brief few minutes, to remind us why we continue to live for the future. So often that reminder is enough to allow us to look past the storm clouds that appear to be brewing on the horizon and look forward to calmer days ahead.