What are you doing this weekend?

This is the question.  The question that has had the same answer for 16 months.  Nothing. I am doing nothing this weekend.

In an effort not to say nothing, I am scrounging for answers that are slightly different from the norm.  This past weekend, I went for a long walk on the canal and didn't get sunburnt.  I made cupcakes.  I made kimchi squash mac & cheese.  I weeded the garden.  

I don't have a particular urge to go anywhere or do anything specific.  I don't have a burning desire to eat food on a patio or purchase non-essential items from a box store.  I think my most fervent desire is to have a different answer to the question of what I'm doing this weekend, or did last weekend.  I just want to be able to do something different.  

I want to be able to browse the farmer's market at my leisure or pop into a store because I saw something interesting in their window.  I want to bump into a friend unexpectedly and have a coffee together and catch up.  I want to be DOING SOMETHING this weekend.

I'm not sure if I would feel this way if the bright lights of the reopening plan weren't peeking over the horizon.  The fact that I can smell maybe doing something different for once might be making this feeling more intense.  

The truth is that what I've been doing on weekends is not so different from whatever I was doing on weekends before all of the lockdown measures.  What I will do on weekends when restrictions have loosened will likely be much the same.  

But I'm looking forward to having the option.