time and place

life is so sanguine lately. so calm, it's bemusing. I've been reading so much about pure consciousness and the illusion that is reality, I think I've almost transcended any sense of urgency. Life has that lovely haze; that feeling that you got as a child when things were hushed and fragrant and sunbeams playing with dust motes was enthralling, and hours were spent in the contemplation of clouds and mirrors. I miss that so much, I didn't realize the hole that wondrous awe left behind inside of me until I started having moments of that again. It's amazing when you don't need a place or a drink or a lover to transport you--when you can get your own adrenaline rushing, your own endorphins fluttering in your bloodstream. We are full of biochemical possibilities.
a small part of me knows I need to integrate all of this relaxation and enlightenment with some vigorous creative endeavor. I do, after all, have a 100 something page thesis to write on Creole women. and I best hurry up vite vite because more and more people are appropriating the term creole for any and everything so it may lose a bit of that freshness that I need it to have for publication. I need to approach this as a book, an ouevre, and not a required task to slog through. been thinking I need a little Nola river road trip to refresh my mind and excite me. Pics to come on the places being featured-it really is all very intruiging. I've always admired these "vestiges of grandeur" and wanted to weave the spirit of history and romance into my own little life. these places are almost indescribable in their preternatural calm and beauty. when I take my friends they are always enthralled...the ancient trees, the crumbling bousillage brick, the murky swamp. transporting...
anyway all of this daydreaming and cat napping isn't very condusive to academic pursuit and an intellectual life but after the stress of the summer it helps to balance and clear things a bit. I resolve not to worry close to my former level ever again-I see why people age, with all of the modern ways in which we allow stress to conquer us. I have to believe that things can be different, that enough cooking and loving and pottery and books and puppies and gardening can keep one indefinitely balmy and youthful. On that note, I will soon be baking fall bread and re-creating my grandma's gumbo and daube, as well as my aunt's stew. this will be the autumn of creole cooking, to celebrate my book. I won't use the term thesis anymore...my great first work. I've come a long way from teenage romance mimicry-love that this is a topic I can respect. mad props to this fantastic laptop, because I've learned so much (and played too much, too).

life is but a dream, and we are the dreamers of dreams...such a fantastic day to be alive and to discover a million and one fantasies...it's raining warm here in the deep, silent south.