Today is Wednesday. When I woke up this morning, it looked like it was going to be just another Wednesday. Normally, Wednesdays are my busiest day. I teach and tutor from 9:40 am to 6:00 pm with only a few, short breaks in between a few classes. But today, my tutoring was cancelled. Glorious! That means I was home by 2:30 pm. I had planned on laying out by the river and soaking up some ridiculously strong rays.
And then it started to rain. And pour. And thunder. I was tragically disappointed for about 7.4 seconds, until I realized I haven’t been able to enjoy a thunderstorm since October. Seriously, it doesn’t rain very much in León, and when it does it’s just a nice little drizzle. Where’s the fun in that?
I changed out of my laying-out gear and into my comfiest pajamas. I turned off my cell phone and my computer, left my headphones in my bedroom, and came out onto my terrace. I haven’t really moved in the past 6.5 hours. In that time, I watched the clouds swirl and fly by, counted the seconds between rolls of thunder and bolts of lightning, and listened to the sound of the rain on the corrugated-plastic rooftop of my terrace. I also read my first book by Kurt Vonnegut. As an English major and a lover of books, I have absolutely no idea how I have gone 24 years of my life without reading anything by this all-important American author. Anyway, I read The Sirens of Titan. And it was glorious. It’s all about the ultimate question, the meaning of life, and the pursuit of… everything. I loved it. Though, to be perfectly honest, I can guarantee you I didn’t understand all of it. Every time I thought I was getting close to grasping the full meaning, the little wisps of understanding would suddenly disappear… pesky little critters, ideas. I’m actually ok with not understanding it all on an intellectual level, because it definitely impacted me on an emotional level… though (again) to be perfectly honest, I can guarantee you I have no idea how to express that impact. But. Such is life, eh? …I wonder if that’s the meaning of the story…
Anyway. I know this blog isn’t about one of my crazy adventures, and that I need (and want!) to write about my trip with Ali over Spring Break, but I just really felt like sharing this experience. While I didn’t actually leave my terrace, the world I got lost in while reading was full of travel through time and space, and I had my own little adventure in my head. And when I finished reading and finally pulled my nose out of the book to look up for the first time in a few hours, I was greeted with this image:
And that, my friends, is worth writing about.
Absolutley wonderful!!! I love all your post’s…it’s like reading a movie in the making! I felt I was right there!! That my friend, is one good writer! YOU!