1. River just south of the Rose, on the
road home. All the green, the foggy
nights over it, dark, too dark to see.
2. Roundabouts more crowded the last few
weeks. Haven't had to stop until
recently.
3. Crowds of kids, university students
last night walking back to the car after dinner. Lots of foreign languages, including the
strange sounding American.
4. Horses and cows back in the fields near
town!
Thursday
16 July. On the Motorway to Gatwick.
Though
I've lived in the desert for twenty years, I can't shake the feeling that I
have been and remain a visitor. When am
I going to go home? England seems more
like home than Las Vegas, or is that just the way I look at Las Vegas from
afar? No.
My
recent adult life has been a process of wishing to come to an adult
understanding of childhood impressions and memories.
How
quickly the green and yellow wheat and rape fields turned to gold!
Friday
17 July. 7:55 a.m. Cloudy.
Rain awakened us for five minutes at 4:10 a.m. All those times we awakened at 4:19 a.m. to
day breaking, now 4:10 is pretty dark (sunrise at 5 now, or a little after,
sunset still later, after 9.)
We
see people lately, this week. They ask, "How
long?" Last week it was three
weeks (seems like last week was ages ago!), earlier this week two weeks, now
all of a sudden it dawns on me: one week, really. We leave on the 28th, but we leave the house
Saturday, early, which is almost the same as Friday, and so departure arrives
unexpectedly even when you know it's coming.
It is a comforting thought largely, fewer groceries to buy, fewer things
to spend money on (as our money runs out!) but then, there are the windows to
wash and the curtains to clean.
I
waited for my parents at the airport for about an hour yesterday, watching people
arrive. My emotions ran up and down,
happy at reunions; nervous, fearful when I heard an announcement that persons
interested in BA flight 146 should see the desk (hijack? crash?).
Ijust realized my father's thinking is like trying to order off of a French menu: we know what the ideas are (the meat), but he describes them in such different ways that it's hard to figure out how he got there or that it's the same thing as we're talking about.
Later: I will not miss "thunder
flies." "Leaver" is an English
word (the school children not coming back next year). Rubbish bins, dust bin liners, post box and
posties (mail man).
From Speech and Sports Day, Saturday, July 18 at St. John's:
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