the week passed like little golden beads, soft round moments sliding through me and past me and filling me up. yesterday: the alarm shriek at sixthirty, shuffle out of sleepingbags onto barefoot hardwood floor, into the kitchen to start a double pot of coffee. the sky lies cold and heavy outside, wind whipping the yew trees and the barebranched hardwoods, making up for a week of utterly perfect sunshine breezes. our goodbyes falter a bit; those of us staying to work have to be there at eight, the kitchen needs to be mopped, not everyone packed. the car ride to blue ridge goes quickly, long fields with shaggy cows, singlelane bridges, a development scarring one side of the road. we pass an alpaca farm named rivendell, a stream choked with briars, a dozen winding dirt roads i'd love to stroll down some quiet day.
the rains fell heavily this year, and the spring in the lower pasture had turned it into a bog. we haul down two mattock tillers and a shovel, sinking to our ankles with every step, and make a stream to feed sweet run, which feeds into the potomac. every swing with the mattock makes a superb squelching sound, and the water fills each space as soon as it is made. cristina finds a frog and screams, but the water is so cold i catch it easily. the smooth, soft skin and big eyes somehow remind me of the month-old chicks in the run we built, two tiny heartbeats held so carefully in my palms. as my heat warms him up, the frog begins to kick and jumps out of my hands before i can get him past the brambles and all the way to the stream. he lands on his back in the mud but seems okay, and scoots away into the water before i can catch him again. we use our tools more carefully now, newly mindful that we tread through someone's home.
we leave early, at two, and drive back past the daffodils and thick burbling clouds. hot showers and clean clothes and more coffee to hold off the cold, and then back into the car for a long drive to dulles. from there i wait five hours for my bus to DC, then five hours more for the bus back to philly. i sleep awkwardly with my stuffsack as a pillow, maybe three hours in all. the earlymorning air on eleventh street makes me smile - if not for my pack, i'd walk back home, but the subway is comforting too, in its familiarity, and when i open the door, my house smells just like i knew it would.
the rains fell heavily this year, and the spring in the lower pasture had turned it into a bog. we haul down two mattock tillers and a shovel, sinking to our ankles with every step, and make a stream to feed sweet run, which feeds into the potomac. every swing with the mattock makes a superb squelching sound, and the water fills each space as soon as it is made. cristina finds a frog and screams, but the water is so cold i catch it easily. the smooth, soft skin and big eyes somehow remind me of the month-old chicks in the run we built, two tiny heartbeats held so carefully in my palms. as my heat warms him up, the frog begins to kick and jumps out of my hands before i can get him past the brambles and all the way to the stream. he lands on his back in the mud but seems okay, and scoots away into the water before i can catch him again. we use our tools more carefully now, newly mindful that we tread through someone's home.
we leave early, at two, and drive back past the daffodils and thick burbling clouds. hot showers and clean clothes and more coffee to hold off the cold, and then back into the car for a long drive to dulles. from there i wait five hours for my bus to DC, then five hours more for the bus back to philly. i sleep awkwardly with my stuffsack as a pillow, maybe three hours in all. the earlymorning air on eleventh street makes me smile - if not for my pack, i'd walk back home, but the subway is comforting too, in its familiarity, and when i open the door, my house smells just like i knew it would.