The way out is through

Snorkulous,

Daddy left today for "NOla" and will be away until Friday. Boo. In the three months that you have been floating in my core he has had to be gone for a total of 3 weeks, which isn't a lot by any means, but it seems to be getting more and more difficult for me each time. We sat outside at the "koi pond" area of the apartment complex that features a pond with a lily pad, a few green growths, and a continuous pouring of recycled water into the pond from an above trough-like half pipe. Miette perched on the brick around the trough and looked like a beautiful statue. I noticed today that her fawnish color tends to camouflage well with whatever surface she is on. We sat on the nearby wooden benches that don't rock as much as slide and shot the proverbial shit. There has always been something about running water that comforts me and makes me open and talkative. It was nice. Very nice. I've had a slight sense of unexplained panic with Chris's upcoming trip. I don't really know why, as I am pretty much acclimated to his travel and am typically just fine on my own. I think it might just be so much change...you (delightful you), work, school, move, etc. And I also have a pretty profound knowledge that the shifting has just started and things that were once so cornerstone in my life might not be so much anymore. Also, I need to be more proactive about meeting other mom's-to-be, regardless of how much of a misanthrope I tend to be and how much I am anxiously dreading the "culture of parenthood" with its "oh has Hollis (our girl name of the moment) crawled yet? oh wow because John has been crawling for a month and they are the same age!" But like any generalization, there are bound to be oodles of moms that I fit with and who can help ease some isolation or rather, foster shared excitement of what is to come. Because I am so excited about you and I imagine what you will be like and learning from you and picking out pumpkins with you so so much.

So I have been listening to Neil Young a lot. It is funny because throughout so many periods of life I have found myself idly listening to a radio station and having heard a Neil Young song and not really connecting it to him particularly, I have listened mesmerized and then made mental note to look up the song and remember it. But I've always felt somewhat stupid saying "Yeah I Like Neil Young." Why? Um no idea but I do that with a lot of things that seem affectatious for inexplicable reasons. It is comforting to me though that I have extreme consistency when it comes to thinks that are really meaningful to me or that appeal to me on a basic level. I don't really know how to explain what I mean but as an example, there is a rather uneventful piece of piano music that Chris plays occasionally and it has been infrequent enough that I don't recall it immediately but I always go, "This reminds me of the piano in Amelie which reminds me of the color green." I don't realize I've already said this because it just is reactionary and kind of bubbles out. But he always smiles at me and says I always say that when I hear that song.

Anyway so I was listening to "After the Gold Rush" and all the sudden a buried memory of my having burned that very song to play for my father came barreling back as I drove along the "lower deck" of 35 (which always makes me think of Ethan and car accidents and scary stuff and I always look for little white paint marks on the side of the median). I remember I played the song for my dad while in a hotel room in Disney World on one of our little vacations when I was in college. It's a rather bleak and silent song and I remember being worried it sounded silly with his whiny voice amidst all that space. But he listened, me on a lazyboy-like chair and him in an upright one, both drinking wine. He explained some history to me about what he thought the song was about and now I forget. I almost called him to share this memory and see if he remembered it too and it all seemed so urgent and important in that moment. But it was nearing 11 pm EST and didn't do so.

On a tangential note, it is just the greatest hits of Neil Young that I have been listening to but in every song it just comes over me that he actually has something to say. I really think that is a rarity- someone actually having something to say in (in general but I think I appreciate it most in music.) Someone close to me and who I think the world of told me that he doesn't have much to say anymore. It made me sad and I don't really believe it (though I believe that he believes it), but I have to say that most people (myself nonexempt) don't often have much to say either. Nothing truly evocative or original or passionate, at least. Scholars have been saying forever that we are a culture of the apathetic and lazy. Choice after choice creating more and more mental, emotional, and physical sloths. The closest I have seen to a cultural pique in a while is this whole election fandango. But even still it seems that most of the interest is rooted in some sort of youtube-like celebrity to-do and just what is supposed to be at the moment. We have a joke of a GOP vice-presidential nominee and a black presidential hopeful. How can people not be interested as if it is some reality tv show? That being said, I am glad that there is a culture that is shifting in this direction, regardless of the motivating factors, and it is obviously a complex issue with multiple and varied interests at stake.

This sounds curmudgeonly doesn't it? Haha. Well I can be one especially when I am in a sour mood the night of the sabbath. I love you and I am going to go take a bath with some running water and Chris's newest gift of candy corn-shaped soap.

Ma