The 'Time of my Life...' ?

It was nearly midnight I was curled up in bed with a book. One of the pleasures afforded by Friday and Saturday nights is being able to stay up and read, without having to worry about the alarm clock dictated routine which normally hangs around one’s neck. My hotel room has a really large window spanning an entire wall. I keep the window open at night, it feels nice to lie on the bed and stare at the square patch of sky. Uneven swathes of velvet in shades of gray, with the odd white cloud floating across it.

The view is pretty unremarkable - a suburban street lined with brown brick houses. A car parked on the street whole night is the only variation one could possibly expect.

The house closest to my end of the street has a stout chimney flanked by windows on either side, there was a party on in full swing, voices in conversation, loud music, laughter and shrieks of joy. The usual “party” atmosphere, really.

For awhile it was irritating, because the loud music was getting a tad on my nerves. But hey it was Friday night right? People can have their fun, cant they?

I ignored all of it and continued reading.

At just about midnight, they played ‘It’s the time of my life’, from Dirty Dancing. What an amazing movie and what a great song!

Dirty Dancing will always be a favorite, especially the music - ‘Time of my life’, the Patrick Swayze number ‘She’s like the wind’ and of course Eric Carmen’s ‘Hungry Eyes’. Patrick Swayze was pretty amazing in that movie, and had this great bit of chemistry going with Jennifer Gray. In fact awhile back, an internet site voted ‘Time of my life’ the number one duet ever.

Anyway I got out of bed and went to the window. The music was loud and clear in the stillness of the night. Dancing silhouettes framed by the window, a chorus of joyous voices trying to sing along with the track but falling woefully out of tune. It was a wonderful.

I lit a cigarette and blew rings into the sky, watching the smoke rise up and coalesce into the night, and all of this with, ‘Time of my life’ ringing out loud.

“Now I've had the time of my life
No I never felt like this before
Yes I swear it's the truth
and I owe it all to you…”

I thought about the last few weeks in Germany, my assignment here - cant exactly do rocket science with Invoices, Sales Orders and Shipping Bills, but having said that, it was good solid on time on budget consulting - nothing spectacular but pretty solid.

Am I having a time of my life? Don’t know really, most things seem to be in key, but there is so much more to learn, so much more to do. And then there is the whole matter of, love.

I looked out into the night; the dancing had become less frantic as the song played out its last notes. But there were loud cheers and shrieks of laughter all around, a bunch of voices sang the chorus slowly, again and again. I joined in too,

"I've had the time of my life
No I never felt this way before
Yes I swear it's the truth
And I owe it all to you
'Cause I've had the time of my life
And I've searched through every open door'
Til I found the truth
And I owe it all to you"

And I thought to myself - I owe this one to them.

Labels: Travel