Home Again: the Weekend

Dear Readers,

I have been remiss. Midterm week, various papers and actually having friends have gotten in the way of updating my loyal public on the goings-on about Keep. I'm on Fall Break now, with a little more time on my hands, and I'll tell you at least a little more about daily life and work. Expect shorter entries from now on -- I think it better to update briefly and often than never really find the time.

I'm going to try and shoot for very short daily entries, which will include the menu from my favorite meal, best moment in class, and miscellanea. For now, I'll just tell you a bit about my first weekend home, and then backtrack to a better picture of how this whole cooperative thing works. (Spoiler alert: we do regularly have toilet paper.)

The ride home was long, but uneventful -- even pleasant. I had answered an ObieClassifieds ad for folks looking for a ride to NYC and was rewarded with $80 round trip transportation for Fall Break. (To compare, the shuttle service, also from Oberlin - NYC, is $150.) We ate up miles and completed the eight-hour trip to Summit, New Jersey in seven. Don't do the math.

At Summit, I debarked with my friend and hallmate Brenna, who had signed up for the same car before we knew each other -- how's that for serendipity? I had arranged to stay the night with her family, in case I wasn't able to reach Penn before the trains stopped running. Her parents were really lovely people and over the moon to have their daughter home. I also met the Dogs. Lucy, a labradoodle, had learned that Sit would get her more loving than jumping all over people, and was pretty well-behaved after the first ecstatic leaps. Milo, a bronze Goldie, was just as ridiculous. In the morning they drove me to the train station, where I caught the first of a series of trains home. The best part: because of her dad's new job, Brenna and her family are moving to Branford or Guilford! Serendipity indeed.

My first day home was pretty quiet. Everyone was out of the house and I spent the afternoon with Allie and Karlie, just hanging out. I also practiced guitar for about ten minutes, which was an improvement to my practice time over midterm week (zero). Saturday night was also quiet -- we played Mario and they slept over, then went to church with me in the morning.

Church was really excellent. I had looked forward to coming to my own home church since my first week in Oberlin, and everything I'd imagined was so. We sang How Firm a Foundation, which is one of my top three favorite hymns, and Sharon's Eucharistic singing made me tear up. But even better than the service was seeing some of my favorite people, irreplaceable in Branford or Oberlin or anywhere else. I was saying good morning to Nanci Henchcliffe when Miz Pat turned around and saw me and light just filled her face. She always shines, and of course she thinks I'm just flattering an old lady when I call her gorgeous, but I'll go ahead and be terribly un-Episcopalian and say that I see Spirit in her. I saw Steve Sharma, the Seibyls, and Liz Melvin. Kris was serving as chalice bearer, and there is something transcendent -- as well there should be! -- in receiving Christ's blood from someone you love. Pastor Sharon remembered me, which was both impressive and affirming, and we talked about the glorious suffusive energy in the church that day (but not in those words, I don't think). She makes me want to be a pastor. I suppose it's either too bad or just as well that Oberlin closed its divinity school in 1966.

Trinity makes me despair of ever finding a home like it again. I suppose it's not a terribly special or uniquely enlightened little church -- that is, it is special and filled with light, but no more so than any other person's little church. But it's mine, and wonderful. Maybe I'll just come back to Branford and go to church here and live in this silly old beautiful house.

Just kidding.

Anyway, we hung around Sunday afternoon, ate at the 'Non, and went for a walk on the Branford-East Haven trolley trail before I dropped Karlie off. Al and I made some dinner and talked -- it's so good to see them both! -- and I spent Sunday night trying to do homework but mostly messing around with iTunes instead. I went to bed at around midnight, maybe a little after, and that's exactly what I intend to do tonight.

So adieu, loyal readers, good night!

(P.S. I also finished an entry about Stone Soup that I had written ages ago, but I'll post it tomorrow so as not to hit you with too much text all at once. Look for it below this one by tomorrow night.)