Ponderings

I seem to have lost track of time. Normal life has ceased for the week, and I have abandoned all hope of recovering it.

It was so strange to find myself in North Georgia in the middle of the week. Surely I should be in classes, but no. Classes have been canceled. Still, I should be working diligently on assignments in Milledgeville. No. Stop. Take better care of yourself.

As I walked up the familiar path into CT Grinder's, I glanced out at the mid-morning traffic. Turning away to face the mountain, I smiled in the direction of FCHS. Part of me felt as though I should be there if not in class elsewhere. Not today. Individuals were grouped in various rooms, kicked back in chairs wooden, or chatting over papers. The individuals who intrigued me most sat on the patio, reminiscing about the Jersey shore and audibly dreaming of lost days. I wondered what brought each of us simultaneously to this juncture. Surely it must be something deeper than a desire for coffee. Surely.

Fireside glow

I'm trying to decide whether to return to the warm of downstairs, or endure the chill of the bonus room for the sake of conversation. An earlier fire has been reduced to smoldering embers. They are glowing in the semi-darkness, inviting me to come back to the comforts of couch and book.

Back to the fireside I go.

"...leave all worries behind you"

Listening to the rain on the sidewalk always makes me happy, but it also creates a sense of longing. I'm not really sure what I'm longing for, but the feeling is there just the same. Outside the rain pours, but inside, dishes have been cleaned, lamps are glowing, a movie is playing softly in the background, and thoughts of sleep are creeping in. Perhaps the longing is simply wishing that this happy domesticity were a permanent fixture. Somehow, it's much easier to make time for the little things I love when water is splashing steadily on my window pane.

Last Hoorah

Today marks a return to reality. I don't think I have ever been more opposed to returning to school. The following is documentation of yesterday's adventures.


Sun on the water near the pier

View from the top of the lighthouse

Christ Church cemetery - who knew a cemetery could be so captivatingly beautiful?

Color?

Or black and white?

Only seven more weeks. Seven more weeks. Seven more weeks...

I fell into a burning ring of fire

I'm sitting here in the darkness, typing, and I keep getting pelted in the head by bugs. They snuck in while the door was open and are now attracted to the light of my laptop. Annnnd that's my excitement for the night.

I'm headed to St. Simon's Island tomorrow, and I'm trying not to think about the fact that classes resume in fifty-eight hours. Approximately sixteen of that fifty-eight will be spent sleeping, two and a half of it will be spent driving, and three of it will be spent catching up on work, which means that I have thirty-six and a half hours of freedom left. Boo.

Spring Break continued...

Ethan Thompson

With big sister, Hannah

With his cousin

David McGowan

Callaway

Spring Break adventures thus far...

Lights flying past on 285

After a late arrival Friday night, the weekend started out with a trip to the Stone Mountain area. I was under the impression that the laser show started this weekend, but apparently I don't know how to read a calendar. It starts next weekend.

Monday was spent visiting people in the Suches area. Most people know my attachment to the small mountain community, but it is hard to convey exactly what pulls me there. Life in the rugged hills of North Georgia is different somehow. Eighty-three-year-old men work as hard and as long as men half their age. A seventy-eight-year-old woman has never had a physical examination, but yet doctors marvel and claim she is as fit as a teenager. There is nothing mystical about this place; the land has simply shaped the character and strength of inhabitants. The people are as tough as nails, but some of the kindest souls you could ever hope to encounter. They, perhaps more than any of us in metro-Atlanta, know the meaning of hard work, and they also know the meaning of true hospitality. Sometimes it is hard to believe that such places and people exist in a world that has gone mad in its' hurry.

Unfortunately, I felt that I needed to snap these pictures before "progress" wipes it all away. The hill on the right in the last photo is being cleared to make way for sixty new houses. It makes me sick to think of the rolling open land being ruined. The people who move into those houses will never know what it was like to stand in the valley and gaze up at green rolling hills on either side of the pass. They can never appreciate what they are taking away from the people who have lived in and loved that valley.

Anyway. One of the best aspects of this weekend has been time to sit and reflect. I have re-discovered sitting in the darkness and dreaming. I'm excited about what life holds. I see the potential to make things happen. I am happy.

Tomorrow...Callaway...

"All things wise and wonderful..."

I feel strange always babbling incessantly about how glorious the weather is, but it always effects me in the strangest way. Stepping out onto the porch, I sat down in a rocker with my hot cocoa and breathed in the clean night air. The heat of the day had given way to a cool sixty-five degrees, and frogs and crickets sang somewhere in the distance. The smell of damp hay recalled everything I hold dear, and tall trees stood silvery in the moonlight. Some nights are simply perfection. The quiet stillness of this place holds a peace I had forgotten after the busy intersection outside Apartment A.

The weekend has been kind, but I feel that it is time to retire. I think I will have pleasant dreams tonight...

"A moment like this..."

There were moments in the day that made everything worth while. I walked into the nursing home, tired in body and mind. Stressed beyond reason, waiting for an end. Coming to the end of a long corridor, I spotted him. An African American man with a worn, but happy face. He's always standing sentinel, watching every motion in the hallway from under the brim of his cap. As I came closer, his eyes shifted up in greeting. I smiled and spoke a word of greeting, to which he responded, "Hello, love." Inquiries as to his well-being followed, to which he responded, "Better now that I've seen you." I laughed and said, "...same to you!" over my shoulder. It was a simple encounter, but it reminded me why I'm here. It made my day in the way only the simplest moments can. It was as simple as having a science teacher greet you by name on the sidewalk...two years after you've taken his course. It was a core course. Most of the people in that class are of no significance to the science department. In fact most of them probably haven't entered Herty Hall since. There is no earthly reason for him to remember, but yet he does. Small moments that made me smile amongst the chaos of midterms.

This passage made me smile...

"And so to the rose garden, then an asparagus bed whose fleshy fingers had grown into tall fronds. Further on were strawberries and raspberries. Fruit trees were everywhere, their branches dangling low over the path. Peaches, pears, cherries, and plums were trained against the south wall where they fought for a place with wild-growing rambler roses.
Bees were at work among the flowers and the song of blackbirds and thrushes competed with the cawing of the rooks high up in the elms.
Life was full for me. There were so many things to find out and a lot I had to prove to myself. The days were quick and challenging and they pressed on me with their very newness. But it all stopped here in the garden. Everything seemed to have stopped here a long time ago. I looked back before going through the door into the yard and it was like suddenly coming across a picture in an old book; the empty, wild garden and the tall, silent house beyond. I could never quite believe it was there and that I was a part of it."

-James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small