And Now I Come to You...

You, my patient home...

I wrote these words about Madagascar more than a decade ago, and now Patricia and I will be going, in less than two weeks at that.  What started as a random bit of inspiration (seeing a nocturnal satellite poster of the world and noting the one gleam of light on far off, nowhere Madagascar and deciding that I would one day go), led to a recurring motif in my song and story writing , leads now to reality. We set off - via Dublin, via Paris, via Kenya - on the 19th.  Wowza!

I'm glad I'll have a week and a half to rest up, for I am a spent force creatively!

Today marks the end of another year of teaching - my thirteenth!  I've had my juniors since they were freshmen, but I won't have them next year.  This makes me sad, as truly they are some of the nicest and most uniquely brilliant people I've had the pleasure of knowing, but also hopeful, for I'll get to meet a whole new group of nerds next year. I will miss them, but absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? (Or, as my partner teacher put it, familiarity breeds contempt!) :)

And now, summer.  Holy, sacred, summer.  Months of waking slowly, to storms, of meditating on the beach, of doing yoga in the hot afternoons, of writing the singing inspiration within me, of travel, of larnin' Franch (I suck), of lingering twilights, of lingering nights, of coffee and jazz and bike riding and hiking and movies and sleep and dreams and cafes and friends and being alone.  I could cry, and laugh.

Tonight, in celebration, Patricia and I will venture, on the green and blue line trains, to La Pena, a quaint little Ecuadorian restaurant.  We go every year on the first night of summer vacation, eat the one vegetarian meal on the menu, talk of the coming summer, and open the two packs of second series Garbage Pail Kids I buy every year...an homage if not a return, however briefly, to childhood.  I love the walk through the neighborhood (Portage Park), the eerie late night feel of the Jefferson Park station, the sense of summer sprawling out like a vast plain before me, interspersed light and dark.  Hope.

Currently listening to: Grimes.  Check her out!

My summer reading list:

Finders Keepers by Stephen King...it just came out and is wonderful thus far.
Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories
The Best American Travel Writing 2014
The Abominable by Dan Simmons
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell (my third time reading it, and I am looking very much forward)
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell...read it already, now listening to the audiobook.
Collected Stories by William Faulkner

Below: a picture of the Horombe Plateau in Madagascar.  Insert us here.


Goodbye!



Comments

Unknown said…
Its an interesting reading list. Surprised that my personal list and your's have a few in common, happy that i do think alike a fellow serious blogger!
8:59 AM
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