Moonlight Ride
This post, like my mind, will likely wander a little bit, because there are some separate-but-related things flowing through my mind. Let's see if we can follow the train of Sara's thought through multiple derailments, shall we?
It started with my drive onto campus tonight, as twilight was just beginning to fall, to meet with my group-project-partners. Not a meeting I particularly looked forward to - there is nothing at all wrong with either of them, I get along with them just fine, but I had spent all day working on the project and was not in the mood to dissect it any further. So, hiking across campus toward the library with my purse, heavy backpack, and borrowed laptop, I took a look at the campus for the first time in ages. You see, I've been back here for grad school for the last, oh, fourteen months or so. But all of my classes have been concentrated in one small area of campus. And in fact, when I was finishing my undergrad back in the late 90s, I pretty much stayed in the same few buildings too. So I miss a lot of the prettier areas of what is truly a lovely campus. And that got me to remembering... (doing the little Wayne's World wavy-hands flashback thing)
Back when I started school, the cutoff dates were later in the year. So while my eldest daughter started kindergarten a few weeks before she turned 6, I started a few weeks before I turned 5. That left me as a high-school graduate at age 17, and moving to Houston to begin my college career one month and one day before my eighteenth birthday, lo these many years ago. The first week, classes hadn't yet started, it was time to move in, get settled, get acclimated. And one thing that some of the upperclassmen did (though perhaps not with the purest of motivations) was an unofficial, informal midnight tour of the campus. Just a bunch of us, wandering around campus at midnight, seeing it perhaps not for the first time, but for the first time in that way.
This is really a beautiful campus.
I need to go on one of those walks again, though not alone.
Flowing into the next thought... There's something I don't do as much anymore, and really should. But between the cost of gas and some very bad memories now associated with the island, I don't go to Galveston the way I used to. No, it's not about the beach -having grown up in California, the beach at Galveston is little better than a joke on a good day, a downright insult on a bad one. Instead, it's about the water. You see, I'm a waterbaby at heart. Where I grew up was not by the ocean really. My city was on the bay, but I lived on the far side of town from it, and it wasn't the same as the ocean. (In fact, the Naval Shipyard where my dad worked was there, and I just didn't spend much time around there.) But still, for some reason, I have an affinity for water. I think better when I'm near water - ocean, lake, river, it doesn't matter. When I really need to think about things, I used to drive down to Galveston at night (this was especially good when I had a car with a moonroof) and just park at the seawall, not even get out, but just watch the waves rolling in and crashing against the shore. I would just go to Clear Lake instead, which is closer, but I have bad memories there too. I'm slowly but surely running out of bodies of water from which to seek comfort.
My other traditional sources of comfort have been taken from me as well. I used to love to just drive and drive until whatever was on my mind, had processed itself thoroughly. Now, with the price of gas and my mounting bills, that's just not a viable option either. And with no hot water at the house, I can't even take my trusty two-hour baths. A pint of Ben & Jerry's, while sometimes necessary, is a luxury I can't really afford anymore, not without doing even more damage to my poor abused, neglected body. I need to get out of here for a while. My weekend in DC was a wonderful start, but it wasn't enough. I need a real escape. The odds of that happening before 2006, however, are not so great. So I guess for now, I'll just blog my way to some semblance of inner peace, and see how long I can hold off the demons this time.
It started with my drive onto campus tonight, as twilight was just beginning to fall, to meet with my group-project-partners. Not a meeting I particularly looked forward to - there is nothing at all wrong with either of them, I get along with them just fine, but I had spent all day working on the project and was not in the mood to dissect it any further. So, hiking across campus toward the library with my purse, heavy backpack, and borrowed laptop, I took a look at the campus for the first time in ages. You see, I've been back here for grad school for the last, oh, fourteen months or so. But all of my classes have been concentrated in one small area of campus. And in fact, when I was finishing my undergrad back in the late 90s, I pretty much stayed in the same few buildings too. So I miss a lot of the prettier areas of what is truly a lovely campus. And that got me to remembering... (doing the little Wayne's World wavy-hands flashback thing)
Back when I started school, the cutoff dates were later in the year. So while my eldest daughter started kindergarten a few weeks before she turned 6, I started a few weeks before I turned 5. That left me as a high-school graduate at age 17, and moving to Houston to begin my college career one month and one day before my eighteenth birthday, lo these many years ago. The first week, classes hadn't yet started, it was time to move in, get settled, get acclimated. And one thing that some of the upperclassmen did (though perhaps not with the purest of motivations) was an unofficial, informal midnight tour of the campus. Just a bunch of us, wandering around campus at midnight, seeing it perhaps not for the first time, but for the first time in that way.
This is really a beautiful campus.
I need to go on one of those walks again, though not alone.
Flowing into the next thought... There's something I don't do as much anymore, and really should. But between the cost of gas and some very bad memories now associated with the island, I don't go to Galveston the way I used to. No, it's not about the beach -having grown up in California, the beach at Galveston is little better than a joke on a good day, a downright insult on a bad one. Instead, it's about the water. You see, I'm a waterbaby at heart. Where I grew up was not by the ocean really. My city was on the bay, but I lived on the far side of town from it, and it wasn't the same as the ocean. (In fact, the Naval Shipyard where my dad worked was there, and I just didn't spend much time around there.) But still, for some reason, I have an affinity for water. I think better when I'm near water - ocean, lake, river, it doesn't matter. When I really need to think about things, I used to drive down to Galveston at night (this was especially good when I had a car with a moonroof) and just park at the seawall, not even get out, but just watch the waves rolling in and crashing against the shore. I would just go to Clear Lake instead, which is closer, but I have bad memories there too. I'm slowly but surely running out of bodies of water from which to seek comfort.
My other traditional sources of comfort have been taken from me as well. I used to love to just drive and drive until whatever was on my mind, had processed itself thoroughly. Now, with the price of gas and my mounting bills, that's just not a viable option either. And with no hot water at the house, I can't even take my trusty two-hour baths. A pint of Ben & Jerry's, while sometimes necessary, is a luxury I can't really afford anymore, not without doing even more damage to my poor abused, neglected body. I need to get out of here for a while. My weekend in DC was a wonderful start, but it wasn't enough. I need a real escape. The odds of that happening before 2006, however, are not so great. So I guess for now, I'll just blog my way to some semblance of inner peace, and see how long I can hold off the demons this time.
posted by SaraSmile | 9:05 PM
1 Comments:
Hey girlie...I love to drive and drive and drive and listen to music too...lets combine the price of gas and go, huh? Course, it doesn't do much for the private time, but I guess we all have to make sacrifices! Mi auto es su auto...just let me know! ;)
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