(Or I guess I could go back to work.)

"The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run."


This came last week to me in Moby Dick. How fabulous, really. How wonderful. I am just enjoying that book more than I have enjoyed a book in a long time. I hope that this time in my life will be looked back upon and characterized by the reading of Moby Dick. I do that, you know, with the seasons of my life. Find something to attach them to, to associate them with. Helps me stay organized in my memories. Kind of love doing it, too. This book has so much beauty and so much roughness, I can literally feel the wind and the salt water cracking my lips, that songs of the sailors, the fears of the first mate and the wild vengeful anger of Ahab. I am there. I am always there when I'm reading. Perhaps that is why I love to read, so much. I can read this book slowly, soaking it in, paced, and I can't do that usually. I can read it with rain, or with dark, it takes me in so completely and deeply, albeit slowly, that I am gone from now and so exultant to be there, with Ishmael.
I miss my friends this morning. I want to have a party. I want it to be New Years. I want to see Knox and Emily. I want to watch Luke play a game. I want to play red rover with Jordan, Anna Laura, Emily, Samantha, Knox, Marshall, Matt, Josh, Katie Gray, Luke, Will, Ran, Crystal and Britta, Jaden, Shiloh, Dawnie, and perhaps more people that want to play, anyone who wants to play. I want to have a pick-nick in the park, have my Dad pay for all of the food, invite all my friends, and play red rover. And I want Shiloh to win. And me. Too. I want to sit in chairs and talk to the women folk about gardening, and men. I want to see Jaden and Shiloh fly kites. I want to go to the mountains. I want to swim. And have pizza at the pool. And have a handstand contest. I want to count deer in the loop, and walk back into the woods to see that old house, or that old church. I need anna laura to be there, to see the old house or church. Maybe she will have her camera. I hope we listen to music in the car on the way there. I hope I don't have to drive. I hope gas is free that day. I hope nobody forgets cream or foil. I hope we have an easter egg hunt or maybe play freeze tag or whiffle ball. I hope Pastor Mitch is there...he was always there when we had easter egg hunts. In the mountains. It will be so cold to swim in the mountains. Maybe we'll go to the lake instead, and ride on the tube, or better yet watch Jordan and Emily ride on the tube. And they'll be grinning so big and trying to hang on for dear life and screaming and maneuvering to balance the tube against the incline. And I will be getting a tan. And the pickles will be so good, whether we are at the mountains, or the park, or the lake. The pickles will just be so good. Ummmh.