Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
~Christina Rossetti, from "Up-hill"
Ahhhh, vacation. I'm -- terrifically -- glad to have it. It kicked off Saturday with a visit from The Science Girl, and a day bebopping around downtown South Bend (DTSB, as we locals call it), hitting the Chicory Cafe for lunch, pummeling the used bookstores (well, I pummeled them; Jess was a model of discipline :), and relaxing at Fiddler's for dinner. I had a marvelous time talking, shooting the breeze, venting frustrations, sharing joys from our journeys, and hanging out (thanks, Jess!). I also made a significant addition to my essay collection, which I'm very excited about.
After she left I went to St. Patrick's Park for the annual South Bend Symphony concert and fireworks display with Meg & Phillip & Co., where I had the interesting experience of bumping into a couple of old coworkers from my last job. Funny. The fireworks were great, minus the cheesy radio 4th of July music blaring through them; I prefer the silence broken only by the booms, screams, and whistles of the fireworks themselves. But still, a nice display.
Yesterday I did absolutely nothing but sleep. Today what I should have been doing was cleaning my nastified apartment; what I actually did was rearrange my bookshelves. I've been adding to my library over the past year without making more room for the newcomers, with the result of little piles of books lying all over the place. So today I heaved books onto top shelves, carted spillovers from living room to hallway, and allowed the grown library to expand.
The result? Wonderful! There's nothing quite like the quiet, even-lined order of hundreds of books surrounding you to make you feel at peace. And of course I'm loving to feast my eyes on the newest additions: Four out of a five-volume set of A History of Women (I ordered the missing one online), The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, A Return to Modesty by Wendy Shalit, Women Warriors (about mythological and historical female fighters), and two books on Jungian interpretations of the feminine in fairy tales by Marie Louise von Franz. Ahhhh. (I mean, I may have vastly mellowed out since college, but I can't get away from my roots, now can I?)
And tomorrow is going to be a fly around, clean the house in a blaze of hurry sort of morning, before I catch the train to visit The Science Girl! I'm hoping I can do the housecleaning quickly, because I usually do better with a deadline hanging over my head.
I've been dragging around in a fuzz of lethargy the past couple of weeks, barely able to do anything productive. But I'm hoping that lots of rest and vacation will fix that. It's time to get back on the horse.
3 comments:
I just saw this post. I had a great time in South Bend too Sarah, and a marvelous visit with you in Chicago! When we were at Fiddler's, laughing over your scathing summation of someone's intellect (I believe you compared it to a jar of mayonnaise), we had a moment of pure cackling glee, and I thought to myself, ahh, I love this moment: laughing myself silly with a new friend.
I hope you train ride back today was uneventful. :)
Sarah, were you likening me to mayonnaise again?!
LOL!!!
No, I tried it on someone else to shake things up a little bit. ;) And sadly I can't take credit for that slam; it was invented by a high school friend of mine; but it's so brilliant it never wears out.
I think I also said of that same person (the one they replaced me with at one of the old jobs) that they could have expected better job performance from a ream of paper.
The train ride was indeed uneventful, in fact delightful, though the homecoming was a little more eventful and a little less delightful, though nothing dangerous occurred in my absence. I'll post about it tomorrow.
And I had a wonderful time in Chicago! Jess, thanks for restoring my enjoyment of the city and for your fabulous and entertaining company!
Post a Comment