I believe it's admirable to know the land where your body walks and rests, even if you do not love it. Although this city hustles on three hundred year old sidewalks and around deliberately-placed trees and hedges, there are little pockets of wilderness between the bricks (the tiniest patches!). And instead of spending my creative efforts in wistful pursuit of transplanting California airiness and space eastward, I can seek the same bliss in the blossoms that spring will bring. And in the sleekness of snow drifts and the adventuresome treachery of finding my way to campus in the morning, in the meantime. Only a hundred years ago there was Mary Austin naming hundreds of plants in just a field, and I can't describe a single one in the neighbor's lawn, except: Big Sunflower. I wonder what kind of tree lines my street? I bet it has a pretty old name. My excuse is that I don't have time for botany. They should make an app for that.
By the same token I respect the names of communities- street names, grocer names, festival names. It seems like the reason behind a street's name will be easier to find than the reason behind its senseless meanderings, at least here in New England, where many of the first stones were laid more than three centuries ago. How many lives and feet and first dates have happened since?
The trick is always to focus on the task at hand. And tonight, I am looking forward to setting up a tea kettle in the lab, submitting a thesis proposal, learning to thumbpick, and making one of those grad student websites. Also, breakfast.
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