I've fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole this morning, listening to (and occasionally watching) the videos of Paul Simon at the Newport Folk Festival--he sung words I needed to hear this morning. And so did Rhiannon Giddens--I had forgotten how searing "An American Tune" can be. "We come in the nation's most uncertain hour"--no matter which year/hour it is when I hear that song, it seems so piercingly true. This morning, it seems more true than ever; but of course, I would have said the same thing in 2016 or in 2002 or 1984 or any of the years in between.
That rabbit hole was a good one to fall down. Paul Simon singing "Graceland"! Paul Simon singing "The Boxer"! Paul Simon singing "The Sounds of Silence"!--there are worse ways to spend the better part of an hour. But not all of my rabbit holes have been as positive.
On Monday afternoon, I pulled up my bill for my upcoming term at Wesley. That bill was much more than I expected. I did a bit of calculating, a bit of looking up past bills, just in case my memory was faulty or in case I was doing math the wrong way. I looked up the fee schedule and the cost per credit hour, and just to be sure, I doublechecked the catalog. I did the math again and again.
I called the business office of the seminary and left several messages. Yesterday, I wrote an e-mail and finally got a response--yes, there had been a glitch. But by then, I had gone down a different rabbit hole, thinking about the cost of seminary, thinking about the cheaper options I had rejected, wondering if I was stupid to do this at my age. Even as I observed my brain following these directions, even as I tried to redirect my thoughts, my brain continued down unhelpful paths.
Yesterday, I needed a break, so I suggested we go to a nearby county park to take a walk. What a good idea that was! Fletcher Community Park in Fletcher, NC is by a stream/river/creek, Cane Creek, with places where one can swim or wade. The paths had a good mix of sun and shade, so the walk was pleasant.
My family gathers in the area most Thanksgivings, so I also had pleasant memories of being at the park in a different season--me walking by the creek while my dad went for a run, a round of frisbee golf, bringing dogs to the dog park, figuring out how the new fitness equipment worked, sitting on sunny benches with the littlest ones while the more energetic/older family members played soccer or football.
The whole area is full of these kinds of sites that send me tripping through a hole in time--a different kind of rabbit hole. I remember all sorts of mountain paths that I hiked during earlier school days. I remember thrift stores and book shops, some of which are still there. There are versions of the Fresh Market that seem straight out of the 90's, while others seem a pale imitation. There are mountain vistas that remind me of endless car trips, staring at the vistas, dreaming of a house to call my own.
And now we have such a house. Yesterday we looked at various seedlings as we wondered what they could be. I thought about calling the NC Agricultural Coop Extension--such a good resource in most states. It's the kind of government that we used to be so good at, at every level. On a day when the Speaker of the House of Representatives landed in Taiwan, it was good to remember my roots in a different way, good not to fall down the rabbit hole of worrying about nuclear war apocalypse.
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