In April we do Savannah...

Tomorrow the Edmonds will be in Savannah.

The last time I was in Savannah was early April 2010, I was there as part of a small travel fellowship I received upon graduating my grad program. My stepdad was on his deathbed. I spent the afternoons walking through town, from park to park, thinking about him, my mom, the fact I'd missed the last 15 years of their lives living away from Oregon, and the fact he'd never visited this beautiful, odd, artsy southern city. He would have loved it. I spent a few hours at the famous cemetery, Bonaventure, admiring the oddball graves and homages to people who died hundreds of years ago. He would have loved that place, too. 

Tomorrow I head back, nearly 14 years later. I'll have some company with me, Sarah and Pierce. We will have a great time, and I will inevitably talk a lot about my experiences as a broke ass student stumbling around there. I imagine we'll do a big walk through the city tomorrow, looking at all the beautiful trees, buildings, and flowering plants and magnolias. Pierce and I can geek out on plants while Sarah finds a place for cocktails. We'll all get pissy at each other leading up to a fancy dinner, but then we'll make up over appetizers. I can't wait.

I talked to a lovely friend of over 26 years today, my class mate at Georgetown, Kavya Rajan. This week she is India, outside of Bangalore, doing some ayurvedic yoga retreat at a school where her mother is involved. Normally she lives in Pristina, Kosovo. We just mesh. We can talk every 3 months or every 8 years and it doesn't matter. We are just curious about each other and we take pleasure in the small tidbits of observation we each have about each other. Two years ago this week we were together in Israel, a trip forged from the pandemic. It was an amazing experience. 

I'm in a solid more confident, yet emotional place these days. I like it. I like feeling more in touch with everything. I cry a lot, all the time, almost on demand; it feels really good, it's my way of releasing stress. When the tears are flowing, inevitably I get a notification from my insulin pump that my blood sugar is dropping. Ha. So maybe I am not so in control of these little laden streams as I thought, or hoped. 

Bruno Berle, Beat 1

Kelela, All the Way Down

Empress Of, For Your Consideration