Friday, June 13, 2003

Spending a Day

I've been taking things from all over the house and putting them into boxes and stacking them in the dark corners of my basement. I'm not sure how big this party on Saturday is going to be, but I want to make space for at least 10 people to move freely. Mum's corner of brilliant geraniums will be temporarily displaced tomorrow, all the pots filled with leggy green plants crowding into the space below her bed. I'm considering every corner of my house from the perspective of a drunken youth, which doesn't consider much of anything.

Around 6 pm I took a walk up into the back field, and halfway up the steep incline noticed that while I used to be intimidated by it, I had barely noticed the climb. There are other things here that I've forgotten to care about, like the general opinion of my peers in Baddeck, and what people will say. By going away and traveling I've gained enough perspective that some things don't matter anymore.

When I got to the top of the hill (the greens are starting to get some kick to them; the rolling field looked particularly vibrant) the flat line of the opposite mountain (which I'd always thought was more, well, mountainous) shocked me with its passiveness, its obvious flatness. All the mountains here are like this, worn and old, remembering days when they too were like the brash young peaks of the West. Its odd to see this, since I remembered them being bigger.

Not much to say, really. My days home have been very chilled out, I've seen some old friends and seen my Dad and gone to Sydney and gone for walks. Jobs will start soon, but the relaxed tone of everything should stay the same. Cape Breton is a place where things follow other things usually the way you thought they would. Sudden disruptions of the status quo are rare.

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