My visit to Shangri-La is over, I'm on plane (with WiFi - is this a traveling mercy or not?) and the update in the corner tells me were 1 hr and 56 minutes from Philadelphia and it's 29 degrees. Math Man tells me the wind is wicked and raw. The football player across the way from me has not gotten the message that you need to wear earphone on the plane, so I'm perforce listening to his music AND the basketball game videos he's watching. Writing is a good blanket to wrap around my mind, so I've finally finished off the post I've promised to Robin and
My host at a lovely (and very rural) northern California university took me for a long desultory walk along the creek that gives the town its name the morning of my talk. The trees are budding, the first blossoms are popping up on the trees - and the enormous camelias in a sheltered cove by the creek are so heavily covered with blooms they look like they've been decorated with red and pink tissue paper rosettes for Valentine's day. The noises of the creek and the birds and even the traffic on the nearby highway made for a soothing soundscape. It felt almost other worldly to be walking without a jacket or mittens and to be wishing for a sun hat, not earmuffs!
I'm coming home to a looming grant deadline - so posting is likely to be light until I've securely fastened 1500 intriguing and coherent words to a proposal text.
In the meantime, you can browse the project that I'll be doing some occasional writing for here: Give Us This Day.
And yes, I got to eat at In'N'Out. What pilgrimage to Shangri-La would be complete without a burger and fries?
Michelle - from 33,000 feet, somewhere over the US
Re project: very cool! I would like to read more on prayer, although I 'can't' write about it.
ReplyDeleteRe earphones: I have great sympathy for babies and their parents, but training in the virtue of patience enters in with no headphones incidents.
The wind was indeed wicked cold, as they say in Maine.
I looked up "desultory" and "perforce". Thank you for these words!