Short journal bit:

Janelle reminded us that there remain only six weeks until our semester's conclusion.  As time goes, I sink into my standing here, like when my feet plunge into the wet sand under the weight of lapping waves.  I like it here, and I don't want to move.

I moved to the Adirondacks in June, which this year acted as my version of January.  The month of release: from academics and commitments, into the woods.

Four months into the so-called new year and the place looks different.  We ask ourselves what it means to be a "local" and I'd like to say being a local means to bear witness to things dying and being born.  This is to say, that you sweep away the leaves you saw burgeon, what is the word for that?  I've found companionship in my dictionary this new year, which is strange because I speak less but have more words in my head.

But my definition is reductive.  To be a local, to bear witness, goes deeper than just foliage.  Like in Banks' novel, there's more to see.  In the texture of a town, there's history.

I'm a local in myself.  I don't live anywhere except in my thoughts and mostly, in my memories. So I cultivate my place, the sensory experience of it decided upon meticulously, to use in my memories.  The Adirondacks have afforded me myth because of its physical grandeur.  It's landscape is a whole story in itself that climaxes at the peak of Giant Mountain and concludes at the picnic bench in front of my house.  There are no characters except me and it has no dialogue, only the landscape at different hours of the day.

I'll miss it here.  What a strange and beautiful idea this was!