pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOUNTAIN MORNING Sunday morning, and I am hanging out in Tree's guest room, wondering if she's awake yet and if there's any coffee on the horizon. Heard her let the dogs out a little ago and got up to pee, but she had gone back to bed, so I read awhile, then fell back asleep. Folks keep asking Tree and me if there's something going on between us—we figure because she stayed with me a few weekends ago when she came to town for a race and now I am visiting her. The truth is, though, that we barely got a chance to talk when she visited and want to catch up with each other. Plus, we were already together for eight years and are now just friends who laugh when we remember some quirky thing we have forgotten about till one of us does it. Again. It snowed Friday, but Saturday was sunny and warm and we had a great time on the trails before going out in search of art. We didn't want to be indoors on such a beautiful day, so we recorded the ACC semifinals for later. Tree wanted to take me to a shop called The Screen Door where artists have permanent booths ever since she discovered it and I can see why. Lots of cool metal art, plus some unusual stained glass, funky furniture, interesting paintings, an assortment of pottery, and some cool, funky garden art. She also invited me to come back up in June for an art tour in the warehouse district. Exploring art tours is one of my favorite things to do. I love the reminder that there is so much creativity in the world and get great ideas at them too. And, as Tree reminded me, I still say "hmmm, I could make that" a lot when I'm looking at art. (Funny, but I do often go home and make it.) One nice surprise is that an old Charlottesville pal came over for dinner. She and Tree and I attended the old-time fiddlers convention in Galax, Virginia, years ago and enjoyed hanging out in our tents making music. Seemed like everyone there played music—and most of it was in front of tents and not onstage—and I never wanted a camera so much as when I saw the women from Galax First Baptist Church giving away cups of free lemonade by a sign that read Jesus Paid The Price. It was such a nice surprise to see Mountaingrrl and catch up on everything we've been up to since we last saw each other. After dinner, the three of us piled onto the guest bed and watched the first three episodes of this season's The L Word. Those shows were definitely the source of several sexy dreams (and I'm keeping the person I was with to myself), but the dream I remember most vividly recreated an actual hike that the Ginger and I took in Rocky Mountain National Park back in June just a few weeks before we broke up. We started out early and eventually walked above the tree line. Snow was on the ground and we had tremendous views of the moraines and peaks and trees and tourists down below. We also saw mountain goats with long white hair standing on the sides of hills, plus elk and big-horned sheep and mule deer. The topography changed several times over the course of our hike, but what I remember most vividly is a trail that wound its way through a grove of aspens. It was so peaceful there and we took a nice break there before climbing above the tree line. It was peaceful up there too—or at least it was until a pounding hailstorm with lightning strikes forced us to run down the mountain as fast as our legs would go. • (Sunday night) Just returned home after spending the day hiking and hanging out and watching Tree's alma mater win the ACC tournament. I put the car on cruise, kicked back, and listened to Alison Krauss for most of the way home. She's a little twangy sometimes, but playing my hip-hop and rap just doesn't work for me in that landscape. Instead, I inevitably reach for Alison or Nanci Griffith or Iris Dement or The Be Good Tanyas or Natalie Merchant of Gillian Welch, whose voices, to me, suit those rolling hills. (Alison frustrates me sometimes though because I am a baritone and have a hard time singing along to her high soprano.)
All right, I better go check on the scalloped potatoes that I finally got around to cooking. Don't know what possessed me to buy a ten pound bag of potatoes, but I'll have five days' worth of lunches packed before I go to sleep tonight. 10:39 p.m. - 2005-03-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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