Friday, June 22, 2007

Morning in the old world

Revelers sang loudly nostalgic songs in the courtyard outside my window until sometime after midnight. I wanted to be annoyed. But really, I couldn't. I was charmed by their youthful exuberance, the passion and excitment of the end of the school year. Many if not all of them were surely graduating seniors, ready to pass into a new phase of their lives. There was something true about their sharing this last hurrah, holding on to each other in their collective rituals of celebration and parting.

I like the moist air and light here. It reminds me of my childhood on the East Coast of the States. Southern California is really too dry for me, in a way too false. I imagine Gaia suffering under the burden of all the people and their effects in southern California, the land sustaining only so much more their passage and irrigation, their building and polluting. I wonder when she will shirk, tumbling property values in her wake. Southern California just isn't really my dream. I want moss and brick and stone.

The conference "morning tea" and registration begins just about now. I should pretty up in my room, then head over. My calfs are tight from all the walking ("there are 325 steps in the tower of the Cathedral" I was told yesterday as we began. Thanks.)

Enjoy your day, my friends. I'm sure I will.

1 comment:

Lilian said...

I hope you had a great time at the conference. I really want to go back to the U.K. sometime. I was there for 6 days back in 2001 when I went to present a paper at a conference in Belgium. As for the East Coast... you could move back here too :).