As usual...

good intentions only get you so far. If I recall correctly, I did say that I would write a little every day, not "blog" a little every day. I have certainly been writing...blogging, not so much.

I pulled my first "all nighter" since writing my senior project at Bard four years ago. I don't do well without sleep. I realize that none of us do well without sleep, but I've always been that way, even as a kid. I get nauseous and dizzy and panicky when I don't sleep. And I tend to cry a lot. I guess I just never grew out of the toddler stage. I don't need uninterrupted sleep, but altogether, I need about 7 or 8 hours to remain functional. I had to finish my draft of my seminar paper and send it out by 7 am. I had been reading/writing nonstop for a solid ten days, making up for all the procrastination I've done over this quarter. I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing the Australian garden (better than some things, but it does get old after a while). I only started writing on Friday, and by this morning I had 50 or so pages in a reasonable state. I do write rather quickly, but getting to the point where I feel equipped to write is so difficult. I still have a stack of 19th century settler narratives awaiting my attention in Google Books (the 19th century researcher's absolute best friend), and yet you have to punch yourself in the face and some point and stop reading and stop writing. I just never want to let go of what I might be missing. And because of this personal flaw, I tend to put myself in dangerously last-minute situations. ANd lose a lot of sleep.

Although, there is something to say about being able to watch the sun come up. I'm an old granny, so I'm never out until 5 am partying, so there are very few times when I see twilight. I used to see amazing sunrises on my hour-long commute to W-O High (and sunsets, come to think of it, on the way back), but never the early hours of dawn. In fact, I associate dawn with the road trips of my childhood, the groggy-eyed trek from the house to the car into the cold, wet, silent morning. Tired excitement. And this morning, I heard something truly beautiful, the chirping of spring birds on my porch. They reminded me of home. I know there are birds in every place, but I just have this really visceral memory of waking up in the mornings, the sun pouring in through my window which faced our backyard. There was a wisteria growing right by the window and the birds would just hang out there and twitter away. I remember, even as a preoccupied adolescent, soaking in that sound and that light and knowing that it didn't get much better than that.

And then I began to think about my home and how I don't know if I'll ever not be a little homesick for my patch of dirt in Liberty, South Carolina. I'm writing right now about the domestic outdoor spaces of colonial australia, primarily the garden, and about how people built palaces of memory upon these spaces in attempt to reconcile themselves with an alien landscape far away from their families. And as the birds made me yearn for home, I realized that this kind of attachment to place is not always a given. I've lived in the same house on the same property for my entire life. That dirt is my home. Those trees are my home. The smell of our house and the smells outside are mine. I know our yard like the back of my hand. I know where the old fire pit used to be. I know where the peach trees were. I know the exact spot where my mother once chopped up a pregnant copperhead. I know where my sister and I reenacted Bridge to Terabithia and where we set up a veterinarian clinic for our imaginary injured critters. I know where we buried our dogs. My body knows exactly how long it takes to travel the gravel drive to the house.

I know that when I get out of the car after coming home from wherever it is that I've been something just feels right. I can rest easy there. That is my place. The country of my skull.