Test Run
****** EDITED for recent events. See below….
Outside it blazes a midwestern summer. Inside, cocooned, I write letters to pen pals, grateful in knowing that notes and small treasures will be back and forth in the weeks and months to come.
So excited to dive into some vintage stationary!! (click for link!!)
While on route to Bloomington, Indiana over the weekend, I work on one such little treasure to mail, a knitted crown, fit for a queen.
I hope she likes it, and never loses her youthful moxie.
We are welcomed to Bloomington by old walls, hand hewn, washed with time.
We are welcomed with love.
Our eldest, living, working and studying in this delightful Indiana college town, keeps his distance from us, of course, in true pandemic style, while also sharing with us the things he loves most about his new home town.
don’t worry, we have masks on.
We thoroughly enjoy the time there, shadowed as it is by the all of everything. We bike, hike, sweat, take photos. It feels a world away.
This bridge reminds me much of Swannanoa, and the bridge we walk daily there to get to meals, classes, concerts and the like. Perhaps next year. For now, we travel empty bridges.
Sometimes, in the heat of the day, we escape to our little cabin to nap in the cool air for a bit.
Smoke keeps the bugs away, mostly.
The weekend continues with dreadful temperatures but delightful company. We take to the woods for an early hike.
It is quiet but for birdsong and an occasional fellow hiker. The green is soothing to our citified souls.
Lake Monroe is lovely, and we get a peek of an inlet while hiking. But I pine for a more glacial lake if I am to be honest. It’s only a matter of days……
John Joe Badger is inspired by this little fairy door and a shrew we meet in the woods…..
This little adventure is a bit of a test run. Not only do we want to touch base and deliver some home cooking to our boy, but we want to measure the state of things outside of our home here in Ohio.
Aside from trips to the grocery store and my occasional visit to the concertina shop to get some part-time work done, we don’t really do anything. This weekend we find ourselves at a restaurant for the first time in months (out of doors, and the staff wear masks and there are plants dividing the spaces, it feels safe…. I think).
I am remotely comfortable with this set up and it all bodes well for our eventual (hopeful) trip north later this month. But the hum of worry stains everything. It just does. Everywhere we turn, there is the threat.
But carry on we must.
and follow the path of those in the know.
Learn what needs learning.
Seek the edges and toe them accordingly.
Our society is so keen on the avoidance of the proverbial elephant in the room. Perhaps we might do well to say what needs saying.
“It’s enough to be walking with you.”
More soon…..
edit: When I wrote “more soon” above yesterday, I didn’t really mean THIS soon. Last night we saw news of outrage and protest in Bloomington after a horrific event. Here is the article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/07/vauhxx-booker-indiana-investigation/
We are a nation on the precipice. A ‘powder keg’ as my husband called it this morning. And I am heartbroken.