when I go home, I'll be happy to go, you're just somebody that I used to know.
Walking home to you
Walking home to you
I'm talking through my wounds that I'm bleeding out for you
Talking through my wounds
Walking home to you
I listen when I can
I listen when I can
To this picture of you I carry in my hand
Lets me hear you say
You're never far away
- Jack White
One of the best sounds in the world is two banjos playing.
The rubbery plunk of lazy "sittin' on der front porch" bluegrass makes me feel nostalgic for things I've never even done - phantom summers with mosquitos and watermelon and cheap fishing poles.
We hitched the canoe up on top of Joel's beater truck and went out to Utah Lake today. The lake was calm and speckled with boats full of bored fishermen and mobs of Mexicans. Jessie took us through clumps of tube-ish grass and Joel found a giant dragonfly for his Plant Pests class. I climbed a sticky tree and found a fish skeleton in the crotch of a treebranch. We read Hemingway, sang country songs, and paddled about until our scalps tingled with sunburns.
Then we went to the river in Springville and popped old paintballs over each other's clothes. Joel caught three fine river trout and we came home as the sun started to set.
We rushed home and preheated the oven. We chopped fresh basil into a bowl of oil-soaked sundried tomatoes. We mixed in a creamy garlic goat cheese and stuffed the fish with it. We made a cheesecake with swirls of dark chocolate. Matt called and said he couldn't join us for dinner.
I went camping two nights ago. Rachel's three boyfriends took us in their trucks out to the middle of nowhere and popped up a tent for one night. They didn't bring an axe or a knife. Dustin shot branches off the trees with his shotgun for firewood. The boys indulged in the disgusting and shameless slaughter of three innocent rabbits while Sarah, Tricia, and I sang folk songs in three-part harmony around the campfire. We had the tent set up on a bumpy slope and listened to lightning strike the valley as we fell asleep. I was covered in dirt before I came home.
School has started up again.
I can't even tap into the thoughts I've stumbled upon, the passion of knowledge I drink, nor the wealth of cleverness I realize in my professors. I belong at the university. I wish everyone felt this way.
About something anyway.
I am tired and full of fish. My mind is a scramble of random thoughts and things I feel I ought to jot down before too long. If I don't I'll forget them until some day someone sings that one song or talks about the glossy look of baked fish eyes.
Well.
I miss home with a sweet and lonely ache, but I felt that same way for school during the summer. I do miss the city lights and Megan's music in her car and my dog's wet ears and the smell of incense in my room and I miss seeing Forrest's black hat over the top of the silver bar at Brasa. I miss Bubble tea with Brett and riding in Myke's van and Mom's laugh when she talks on the phone and hugs from Dad and I miss Heidi not getting out of my room. I miss Hannah and Naomi clomping up and down the stairs, out the front door, and across the deck just outside my window. I miss the trail behind the houses down to the long twisty creek and listening to Morrissey on my stereo while I paint outside.
I miss the summer and not being older.
But I suppose that had to end for now to happen.
Man, I get so clever when it's late.
Our house is deliciously pretty. I want to swim in the thought of it. For some reason the idea of that is confusingly beautiful.
I am tired.
But I'll write anyway.
My bedroom is wide and quaint with slanted ceilings and windows pointing out towards the mountains. Our kitchen has real tile floors and there is a bay window in the dining room. We have a fireplace and leather couches that sink and fold around you when you sit down. We have bookshelves on all the walls - they are almost too crammed with books to stay on the walls. Roses poke out from the hedges on our walk to school every day and Sarah and Tricia live so close we throw rocks at them while they sleep. Our study has rich wood paneling and secret cupboards for staplers and envelopes. We put Beatles and Bob Marley posters on its walls and hung our musical instruments on thick nails next to the window. Our front door sticks and the back door doesn't lock. We tacked up star trek posters in one of our bathrooms and have old fifties-style hooks to hang mugs on above the fridge in the kitchen. There are two apple trees, a pear tree, and mobbish clumps of grapevines in our backyard.
Every morning I go out to the vines on the back fence behind the shed and pick rich purple grapes off into a bowl of cottage cheese for my breakfast.
I slice a pear into my salad for lunch.
I chop through six or seven apples at night for fresh pies.
It is such a beautiful house.
Today I missed going to Centerville/Bountiful for happy fun family times. I feel miserable that the whole fam went up without me. I did at least read almost half my novel I need done by Tuesday. I wish I would have known what a real party it was going to be - I would have found some way to be there. I miss fun.
Hemingway and Behn maybe could have waited until tomorrow.
Maybe.
Meh.
I really did need to get that reading done, though.
Anyway, I am exceptionally sleepy and I have so much still to write about that it is too much. I'm going to just slip out of this post right now without even finishing.
Goodnight.
And the dirt beneath my heels in the road
Obeys command to me and serves me as I go
And though it help to know you're never far away
I can't help wondering how you might feel about me today
You'll see me in a dream
You'll see me in a dream
You'll see me in a dream across a mountain stream
And you will hear me say
You're never far away
Never far away
Never far away