In Greenville for the summer
Posted Wednesday, May 16, 2007 @ 06:34 PM
One quickly forgets the ease of slipping back into the rhythm of summer. This summer, as with nearly all of them, the process of remembering involves ice cream for breakfast, seldom venturing beyond the realm of pajamas, and feeling the hours pass slowly as I cycle through the house from computer to television to refrigerator. Normally the pattern gets broken up by phone calls and outings with friends—something I would expect my first summer home from college—but in Greenville I've yet to meet anyone, and it is enough of a drive from Birmingham (six hours or so) that I doubt many friends will make the trip to visit.
Part of me thinks it will be easy. After a year at school surrounded by people from the moment I left my room until, at times, three or four in the morning, it's refreshing to answer to no one, to forget that I own a cell phone, and to do nothing and everything alone without speaking. I suddenly have as much uninterrupted reading, thinking, and writing time as I did in high school, if not more. I don't know that I prefer one world over the other—company or solitude—but I imagine it's much like a sailor's return to sea. The excitement upon departure is unparalleled, save for the desire to return to land after a few months aboard ship. Nevertheless, a summer at sea will be good for me. After all, I've only a little more than two months in Greenville before I leave for China, and then school starts a day or so after my return.
Seeing a full refrigerator day-in and day-out has been a joy, as has the return to my father's kitchen, where at least once every two days we sit down as a family and eat together. We have many amenities in the new house that I've never experienced before: a gas stove, a central vac, a screened-in porch, a garage, more HBO than I can manage, and twice as many light switches for every room. Living in the new house doesn't feel strange the way I'd imagined it might—a testament, perhaps, to the nomadic lifestyle I've adopted. When we left Birmingham I thought I'd never get used to the impermanence of homes and cities, parading in and out every few months. There was Tuscaloosa first semester, then Georgia Christmas break, then Tuscaloosa, then trips to Memphis, Oxford, New Orleans, and Chicago, and now home in South Carolina before China and Tuscaloosa again. Next summer I may be studying in Paris for ten weeks (we'll see), then it will be Greenville briefly before heading back to school. Et cetera, so forth, and so on. Despite some of my posts here informing you of a plan for my major, I still don't have one, but every day I think more and more about making a place for travel in my studies. More on that as it develops.
At any rate, having barely unpacked for the summer, I'm fully aware that the boxes will come out of the closet before I know it. The process of moving is quickly becoming one of my least favorite things. I managed to whittle down the number of books I brought home to a single box (a large single box, containing about forty), and left the rest of them in storage.
I begin work for The Man on Monday at my local Starbucks, which will give me a way to spend time (the paycheck is secondary, of course). Until then I'm becoming acquainted with the city, which has a great downtown area filled with independent businesses, restaurants, and cool coffee shops, with a beautiful park to boot. I've already visited the Confederate Museum, and I hear there's an art museum somewhere as well. This weekend there's a Greek Food Festival, next weekend a hot air balloon festival, and Cirque du Soleil will be passing through in early June.
When I don't get out, I spy on the neighbors. One house over there are some French Canadians, and down the street there's a pack rat from Chicago with boxes stacked against his windows. He mows his tiny lawn with a riding mower, then pressure-washes his driveway when he's done.
Though I expect things will quickly become familiar, I look forward to any trips to Birmingham that I'll make in the coming weeks.
Welcome to the past, bucko. You're swimming through the archive of rocket-fish.org. If this isn't where you were headed, I suggest you get out of here while there's still time.
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Geez, again with the sea metaphors? :-)
I am very jealous of your cool downtown/riverfront area, from the pics I saw. Birmingham is trying to get there downtown, but sometimes I doubt that it will ever turn into anything interesting.
I am also jealous of the (apparently) wi-fi enabled, screened-in porch. It is my opinion that summer evenings in the South on a screened-in porch--with a sweating glass of iced tea at one hand, a good novel in the other, and the song of the insects in your ears--are one of the great pleasures of life.
16 May 2007, 9:19 PM.
Bob Jones University has a remarkable collection of classical paintings, mostly depicting Jesus Christ and other biblical figures.
If you're into that sort of thing.
17 May 2007, 2:46 PM.
If you want company for a few days I can fly or drive up there. I'm free.
18 May 2007, 1:31 AM.