Played trivia tonight with some friends from work. We had done it during the summer and were delighted and surprised to learn that this trivia game also went during the fall and winter months. Now we have something to remind us of the summer in October! The weird thing is, it’s all a little off.
Sure, the same guy reads the trivia questions and we still fill out the same sheets for six rounds of trivia that go from 8-10:30 p.m. But, our carefree days of summer are gone. Our days are now filled up by work. With cares and details and thoughts of tomorrow.
So, it was a great feeling for me to give myself this two and a half hours of trivia. Yes, I had school work to do. But, there is something about the slow and steady progression through the ten questions of a trivia round that is grounding. It is literally like a kind of zen. My mind slows to focus only on the ten questions at hand. Who just released an album this week? Where are George and Martha Washington buried? Or what number is neutral on the PH scale? The stresses of the day fall away. My teammates and I converse, throw answers around. We lose ourselves in the gentle plodding routine of filling out our answer sheets.
And slowly the night moves toward the end of the round. But I feel renewed and calmer. Like more spaces have been created in my brain. It may not be summer, but for a few hours on a Tuesday night I was given a dose of what our summer nights felt like, only two months ago.
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