she*had*a*thirst*for*knowledge

When I’m sitting in a parking lot, like I was last night, wanting to rip my heart out of my chest and throw it on someone’s doorstep, it’s good to know that I have friends that I can call who, at a moment’s notice, will have me sitting in their living room with drinks already made. So I can bawl my eyes out and let the franticness release somewhat.

I haven’t had friends nearby - physically and emotionally - like this in years.

This past week has left me wide-eyed, in disbelief. I don’t quite understand it. How did I end up here, with this life? How am I so lucky to be here, now? I can hardly process everything. It’s Sunday night, and I am sitting here, almost throbbing with happiness at all the events and moments and things that have happened over the course of the week. And it’s nothing earth-shattering - but it’s just a number of things that make me realize Oh my God, I live in a community, and I am a part of this community, and people are lovely, and I love it.

This afternoon and evening I took my daughters with me to Usufruct, an event (what other word to describe it, not quite a party, not quite a festival, not quite neighbors just hanging out?) at a house in my neighborhood. This is a gorgeous house surrounded by 10 acres of hilly, wooded land, and the owners are looking to sell the land, and if it is sold, it will likely be sold to developers, and the people who rent the house there have been trying to figure out a way to preserve this greenspace in the center of town for the community. So they hosted an event to get people over there to see the land to help figure out what we can do to preserve this as a community place. Besides the gorgeous house, there is a trail through the woods that leads to an abandoned commercial swimming pool built in the 1920s that they think might be a great place to show films. There is another trail down a hill that leads to the Recylcery, a place for people to bring their bicycles and learn how to fix them and help other people learn how to fix them, plus an experimental community garden brimming with more basil than anyone would ever know what to do with. We stayed there for 5 hours, and it was the cream on the cake of this week that has blown my mind. Maria was reading Tarot there, and she read the cards for me, and it was a freakishly relevant reading. And all I can say about it all is a series of exclamation points. And so here are the exclamation points.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really can’t process it all. I am almost dumb with amazement and knowing the people I know here and loving them so much, and hearing the sounds of the crickets making a racket on this September night I am in LOVE with the night, and in LOVE with Carrboro, and in LOVE with you, and you, and you, and most of all you.

Matilda’s preschool had a teacher work day today, so she stayed home with me. We went to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke this morning, and it was a fun little outing. I’d been terrified to bring my children to a museum with me, just thinking of how bored they would get and how disappointed I’d be to have to leave after just a short visit, and so I’ve been avoiding them for years now. But she handled it pretty well, and we were well satisfied. The museum’s permanent collection is nice - and they had an impressive display of selections from it - I was particularly attracted to the very large 17th century (?) map of Rome and the John Singer Sargent painting. Matilda liked the giant allegorical painting of Christ and hell and devils and scourges and whatnot. We sat in front of that one for a while and talked about what we saw in the picture. She seemed to think it was pretty cool that someone painted that, as she’s no stranger to painting herself. The other two galleries were disappointing - one showing a 90 minute film with the theme of the Rape of the Sabine Women, and a sign out front warning of sexual violence (no shit) and possible inappropriateness for viewing by children - the other showing 6 short films with various themes. I was kind of fascinated with one that showed creepy computer-generated images of suburbia, Matilda liked the one of the pedicabs underwater. I got pissed off by the one that showed a naked woman from the neck down hula hooping a hoop made of barbed wire. Yawn. There was a sign in front of that one warning of nudity, and I thought “whatever, like she’s never seen naked people before,” so I walked in with Matilda. The sign should have warned about the close-ups of self-mortified, undulating flesh. The violence of it irritated me more than the nudity would have.

Yesterday Sean and I took the kids to the public library and then out to the country for ice cream at Maple View. I wished I’d brought my camera - the view was so perfectly North Carolina Piedmont.

Sunday we four went to Leanne’s son’s 3rd birthday party. We all got bit by mosquitoes but had a nice time. The kids had an incredible time, actually. There were two inflatable swimming pools. And beer and grape Kool-Aid (which my children had oddly never tasted before and which brought memories rushing back to me) and cool robot and monster-themed snacks.

Saturday I took my girls to the town commons to see the Radicackalacky puppet performances. We met up with Maria and Emily there. We stayed all afternoon. It was so much fun, to see an event in this town sponsored by people in my generation, for people in my generation, rather than by and for Boomers. That’s the feeling I got from it anyway. It felt far more relevant than all the other community events I’ve attended in this town. The energy was exciting, and I was feeling pretty glad about having my children grow up feeling comfortable in such a creative and (ugh, dare I say it) radical atmosphere. They had a blast. I thought the performances by Bread and Puppet Theater were particularly fun.

In all that time I also managed to finish two knitting projects and get dreaming on another and finish one book and start two more (this one and this one). My first day at my new job is tomorrow. I’m pretty excited about it.