Out in the stoicks

Rather than an update about the specifics of what I've been up to for the last while, I thought I'd tell the story of how I came to be such a derelict blogger over the summer when I'm pretty organized about it during the school year.

I remember when I was about four or five that I would wander down the hill from my house to visit my grandparents. I walked through the peach orchard on a little path between two rows of the trees. The path was important because it was the only official path to the stairs going up the hill. Between all the other rows there were just weeds. Sometimes I went the wrong way on purpose to see if there was anything interesting in the other rows. I also remember sometimes I would just flop down in the weeds and look at the clouds and daydream. It seemed like I always had time for that.

Hills were important when I was 3, and even until I was 10 or so. There was the hill where our house was, the hill of dirt Jay and I had to play in, and the little hill in our backyard by the fort near the creek at our second house. There were many hills. Jay and I would so frequently crawl around in tall weeds on hills that it was almost a nightly ritual to have dad remove the slivers and thorns from our feet and hands. We called these "stoicks."

While picking blackberries the other day, my new friend suggested her favorite ways to avoid the painful wrath of the blackberry thorns. I realized that after an entire lifetime of running around barefoot in stickers and picking blackberries every summer, it had never occurred to me that a life without stoicks was even possible.

In order for me to maintain my life in front of the computer, in an office, in classrooms, and in a generally organized logical way, I believe I have to run wild at least once in awhile. This summer, like many others, was my time to return to my earlier status as a feral person. I encountered the usual kinds of stoicks; blackberry, wild carrot seeds, sharp rocks that get inside your socks and get stuck in your toes, thistles. I encountered a few new varieties as well as a few new kinds of itchy mosquito bites and a close call with a rattle snake. I did many things without real plans. I got dirt all over me several times on various farms, in muddy creeks, and while gardening.

I'm back in town domesticating myself with pre-planning for the year, my first to do lists, a lovely new place to live and a nicely arranged room. Structure, plans, and organization are starting again. This situation is quite conducive to blogging. My hands are relatively clean. My day is somewhat planned out. I'll start to squeeze in summer stories with the fall stories over the next while. Until I go feral again next summer.