November 18, 2011

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  Today I booked my flight home for Christmas. I am going home on the 16th of December and I am really looking forward to it. This, for me, is a significant change in attitude, and it's hard to describe (on the internet, especially) quite what is different. But what I can explain is that I'm free. I have chosen every single aspect of this life of mine, and knowing that makes everything different. I am going because I want to go. 

  My dad's visit - which feels like so long ago now - was good. I made him walk too much, I think. He took me to a hockey game and I showed him my favourite buildings on campus and we talked sometimes and other times just existed together in comfortable silence. I get that - my silence - from him, and somehow it's nice to know that. 

  November continues to be a month of nightmarish amounts of work, but it isn't really scaring me. Every day a little more gets done, and soon it will be the end of the term. I wish I had more to say. I fill pages of real paper with my thoughts every day but most of the time I'm happy to keep them there. I am getting less comfortable with the internet in general. I don't think I'm cut out for modern life. 

  I am sleeping more. I read. I am learning a lot but very little of it has to do with libraries. It's getting colder and there is less time for walks, but earlier this week I found the most spectacular tree. It has the sort of enormous trunk you see in storybook illustrations, with gnarled bark wrapped in knots of grey. It stood alone in a courtyard with its branches reaching out like the wide arms of a father gathering his children. If it weren't so cold outside I would sit under it every day. 

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  • 12:31 am
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