Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

--William Butler Yeats

very, very happily, it is time to pack up and leave. packed up i have already, to leave is tomorrow. it's interesting to pack up with the speed and sure thorough efficiency of routine, with the perspective of a short vacation added to the exhiliration and depression of leaving the intimate, laughing, safe STEP community into the bigger, bustling, blurring depths of college life. i'm not really that eager to get lost in the Houghton crowds again.

but we have no control over the seasons; rather, they sweep us along, and we are caught up once more from our happy eddies into the currents, with no inclination if we will ever find place to eddy out again and rest. it is good that there is joy in challenge and above fear as well as joy in safety and rest.

the next challenge: Highlander. 12 days in the woods with a select brave few from this year's incoming freshman class. it'll be good to work with college age kids for a change; one of my friend's little brothers is in my group, and the others look promising too. we'll go rock climbing, play around on the ropes course, do all sorts of challenges, play games, go swimming, hike, hike, hike, canoe, canoe, canoe, and probably talk a lot too. and sing super-fun songs.

and afterwards, when it's college time...i'll have fun freshmen to sit with in the cafeteria, too! because when you're an old senior, no one loves you anymore...

so...hi. how's life? good... good...glad to hear it. the kids? all right, nice, nice...business good? right, of course...so...ummm...how about the Tigers, yeah? the Tigers...good stuff those Tigers.

pish tosh. i cannot hold a conversation for the life of me, unless it's about food, lighting campfires, or the many strange and wonderful things that happen on the trail and are only comprehensible to those truly strange people who drive three hours in order to climb out of the van, eat bad food, carry thirty or forty pounds of said food and gear on their backs for forty miles in a big circle to climb into a waiting van and drive right back to the beginning of the trail in order to run three stinking miles. for the sheer pleasure of it. to quote "Dad" from the immortal "Calvin and Hobbes," after a long bike ride through hail, rain, smog, potholes and dangerous roads for no suitable, practical or even emergency purpose:

"I love the sheer hedonism of the weekends."

And now it is off to more hedonism. Today we prepped gear and planned routes (hiking, canoeing, and emergency evac). Tomorrow...we prep even more. Sunday is go-day: we abscond with our seven young, impressionable incoming freshmen back to the only place i feel comfortable anymore: the woods. soon every stroke of my paddle and every mile under my forty-five pound backpack with take me farther from all those strange-smelling people living in boxes and always changing their clothes and hiding from the sun all day.

it will be good to go back even if only because i own no deoderant and am very sensitive to my armpit reek when the people around me have covered their God-given pheromones with chemicals.

school afterwards? oh boy...i think i might stay in the woods...

so, in random bored browsing, discovery can happen.

"Beware the glamour of internationalism!! Internationalism is just as bad as nationalism. That lure of wanting to be or being proud that one is a citizen of the world and making that one's whole identity is a big mistake. An internationalist has access to all cultures and countries but does not have any accountability to live in accordance to the rules and laws of that country. They sit and observe peoples and cultures without any thought to their own--like a fly on the wall. They may say a lot and offer advice and criticism but not actually do anything to change the situation. They may be well-read, well-travelled and have tasted a variety of food all over the world, but their love for these places don't deepen, in fact their relationships are the same way--meaningful on the surface with painfully shallow roots."

thankyou, hansypansy, God bless your little anonymous self, and save me from a horrifying life of detatched observation.

Home. I am going home. Finally. Let the road stretch out long and open and wild and free in front of me and I will show you the meaning of speed.