It's far, but I like night drives...

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30 fucking minutes.

And you never know where it's going to go. You just kinda settle into the routine, leave the window open so you can hear the rain splatter across the shattered pavement of the parking lot and hope to god you stumble across a word or image that evokes some primal, unique desire in the bottom of your soul.

Stream of thought writing is what they call it. Not thinking too much, saving the editing for later, and just writing something. It is a great cure for writer's block, I must say.

There's a girl who's image pops up on my monitor each day, smiling and laughing and telling me what a pain in the ass I am. She's the reason I'm starting 30 minutes. She's the one pushing me to this, by my own request. How gravy is that?

So it's raining and cold as hell. I love the rain, how it lulls you to sleep, how it sounds against a tin roof, the smells that it kicks up. But that pleasure's kind of damped by the cold, knowing I'll have to turn the heat on in the next few weeks to keep myself from hating everything.

Was outside smoking with Nate last night, burning hard earned work up and inhaling the essence of sweat and dirt, blowing the remnants up into the cool, night sky. He remarked on the change of weather, how it was so much more comfortable and reminisced about his home. Cold sand being therapeutic, freezing water being a joy.  I still retort with how god damn insane you have to be to enjoy something like that. Sand is a pain in the ass enough, quite literally if you stay too low in the water while the tide goes out, but cold sand? I'd rather have my eyes scraped out with a lemon zester.

Really not sure where to go with this but maybe it'll become clearer when the pounding rhythm of the keyboard finds its tune.

A melody, something to flow along with.

Maybe my keyboard will like where this is going too.

Who knows, but that's part of the fun, always having something new to find out, to overcome, to change you.

I've signed up for the German Immersion event on campus, hosting to high school students who've had 3 or 4 years of this shit. I'm still not sure if just because it's high school level stuff if I'll still be ahead of them linguistically, but worse comes to worse, I can always tell'm to fick auf and go about my business.

It'll be interesting, when and if I get to Germany,  to learn the colloquialisms and the actual every day speech patterns of a new culture. Oh to be sitting in a street cafe with Eins curled up by my feet, enjoying an open faced sandwich on the thickest bread anyone's ever seen, chatting over whiskey and coffee in a language that's not yet my own.

To see the sights, truly ancient history jutting out in broken pieces among the new, modern look, the definition of advancement and beauty. Yet I have to wonder if they actually look on these items with reverence, still. Or a sense of nostalgia, maybe wonderment. Human beings can get used to anything. You see the same miraculous things every day, the same objects that people travel across continents to take a snapshot of, and don't even bother to trace the outstretching arches and sunken roofs with your eyes. The wonders of the world are only sought out by those who have never gotten a chance to see them.

Many of us walk by the same things, day in, day out, that a visitor, an immigrant, a tourist, a passerby would stop and gaze at for hours on end. Without a second thought we flick our ashes and drop our bottle on their steps. We've become so inoculated to the beauty that's in our own back yards that we don't even think twice. It's always been there. It always will be.

But then I go home, and see all that has changed. The trees that are no longer there. The school that is no longer there. The stores that have been reshaped and re-purposed to fit the new and ever changing face of the town. But the sights that have always been there, I don't think twice about.

The old baseball fields.
The tressel.
The sale-barn.
The mountains.
The saw mills.
The swimming holes.

She tells me about the Mum-Fest, how it's the first she's never been to. She realizes just what it meant to her.

People rarely have this kind of clarity, to look back, to understand, to realize those bright, bright gems that their towns have held for them.

Saw Mill Days. The 5k. The center of Glenwood being shut down.

I am pissed that that has changed, been cordoned off.

Are you tired of where you are? Tired of having been there day after day after day?

Shut the fuck up and realize just what this place holds for you.

Sitting in the old Glenwood cafe at fucking 4 in the morning listening to the old farmers talk about their farms and familys and old traditions. I learned how rough it could be to rely on the land. The sacrifices it would take. And the payoff that could come of it.

The farmland itself. I always had the up close view, never looking more than 5 feet ahead of me, searching for the next rock or root that had to be upturned.

It's not until you show someone else what you have that you realize just how amazing it is.

I show her pictures, just one or two, of sights I saw for 22 years. The view of Hot Springs from the summit. The view of hay fields from the tree line. The small glimpse of the swimming hole tucked back in the woods. Her eyes light up, and there's a hint of excitement somewhere in there. And I realize where I came from.

And I realize where I am now.

The Strawberry Festival.
The alley behind O'Brian's.
The benches along the river.
The falls in Glen Helen and Greenville.
The endless cornfields with long straight stretches of highway.
The graffiti under the bridge over the Miami.
The sidewalks and lights stretching from the courthouse all the way through Troy, past the projects and drive-thru convenience stores and the rich neighborhoods on the hills.

It's startling what we have once you look at it. It just depends on whether you decide to look at it or not. Be a tourist in your own town. Be a fresh pair of eyes just coming in, hear the accents for the first time, start fresh with all the friends who make this town your home, give it all a second chance, every day, and you'll find that you don't need rich mansions and upscale clubs and a country club to make your home better than anyone else's.

It's your home. It's your town. Your city.

Find some beauty in that.