Saturday Night at the Ritz ...

As I recall, this one began when I was thinking of the theater I attended ... the only theater ... in the town where I grew up. Then it became complicated. It speaks of life, not just in that small town, but everywhere.

I recalled the sounds and smells of that small movie house. Oh, the memories they evoked! Then I thought of the certain sameness we experience in our daily lives. Not a monotonous sameness, necessarily. Repetition can be reassuring, comforting.

Still, we sit through those repetitions, on the chance that we may, indeed, have missed something ... "some nuance, some clue to the outcome, at least some hint of what will happen next." And there's hardly a person who isn't just the least bit curious about that ... about what lies ahead, today, and beyond.

Part of a manuscript in search of a publisher:

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE RITZ

Yesterday spools away, comes
spinning back as today, the same
old events flicker past, and there's
the heavy odor of buttered
popcorn, stickiness of the floor
begging me to stay while I shift
uneasily in my seat, for this
is where I came in, the point
at which I might leave, if I chose,
as though I could, but I stay,
for I may have missed something,
some nuance, some clue
to the outcome, at least some
hint of what will happen next. © 2006

***

Today's word: repetition