College

Summer is still fresh in my mind all the the meadows and their smells seem to stay in my hair for months after. Pennsylvania especially has wonderful meadows, filled with flowers and long grasses. My whole stay there was beautiful, besides going on many hikes I also did some baking, knitting, beading, and lots of reading. I finished War and Peace with time to spare, and now I'm settling in to another year of college. The room I'm in this year is very nice, its a good shape (which believe me is rare in these old buildings) and I think all my stuff fits in quite pleasantly. My window is right next to an oak tree, which means that the more daring squirrels will sometimes peak in. In the winter I will be able to see front campus and the houses across the way. I like to be able to see the lights in other people's windows not really to spy on them but just to know that they are there and awake.

Hydrangea

I bought a white hydrangea today on a whim and right now its peaking over my computer, making me smile with its hundreds of petals and its dark green leaves. I also ran into a black and white great dane named Duke who came up past my hip, I don't think I've ever seen a dog that big before but his owner assured me that he was just a lap dog (not on my lap!). He stretched out his tongue to lick me and I realized that it was as big as my hand! I stood there petting him for a while, fascinated at his sheer size. I would consider buying one if I ever have lots of land. These dogs almost look otherworldly.
The weather here in Maryland went from strangely cold to sticky hot, there is even a haze in the air from all the humidity. Its dark out now and a chorus of cicadas and crickets are chirping away, no stars yet just passing headlights and a vague outline of trees, there leaves still in full summer green.

Going

Summer is now officially dwindling away, and my stay in Pennsylvania can no longer be counted in weeks or even days. Its afternoon and the sky gives the vague impression of impending rain, the shetland tea shawl is off the needles but yet to be blocked, War and Peace is very close to being done but I seem to have lost all energy and taste for it. So it seems a strange time of half endings and near beginnings for me.
Some sort bush full of white flowers is leaning into the windows and the sounds of work and sleep are all around me. I'm not packed and feel a sort of loathing for Flordia and its constant reapperance in my life. I want it put away in a neat box marked "past" but this is not likely to happen. Nothing, it seems, is so easy to put away.
Tired and restless is the best way to describe me these days. Yet I seem to get things done, and to at least appear active.

Dusk

Oysters lay opened.
soft pale cadavers,
Pillow like corpses,
Pale in their discovered weakness.
No pearls, only flesh
Mortality exposed.
Yet the coffins
Of their shells
Seem to dream on,
In milky white reflections

-Kristina

Almost

I've been working on the edging of my shetland tea shawl and I'm getting really excited about how its turning out. So I thought I would post some progress pictures. Enjoy!



I have also made some progress on my embroidery.

Time and Eternity

MY cocoon tightens, colors tease,
I ’m feeling for the air;
A dim capacity for wings
Degrades the dress I wear.

A power of butterfly must be
The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.

So I must baffle at the hint
And cipher at the sign,
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clew divine.

- Emily Dickinson

With the Coming Rain

Poppies are growing all over the garden. Along with a ton of other little flowers and pumpkins, tomatoes, sunflowers, squash, beans and gourds. All thats missing is a few chickens and maybe a sheep or two :).
Its been a sort of sleepy day today, mostly going around and doing errands. A storm seems to be coming and I'm planning on cuddling up with a good book (War and Peace) and drinking some sort of spicy indian tea.
Its been a very hectic week, and relaxing seems somewhat hard to do after all the unrest and anxiety. This anxiety seems to stay with one, like an echo, fading slowly, but nevertheless present. I don't quite remember a time when all of these little echoes have completely left me. However they fade, and what are they but memories?

I told you in my last post that I have been painting a bit, this is an unfinished watercolor that I have been working on. I'm also getting ready to do some embroidery, and hopefully work some more on my shetland tea shawl. And with that I will leave you with a picture of the sky at dusk as seen from Pennsylvania.