Well, I’m headed home now (writing some of this on the train ride along the Hudson River – it’s a beautiful, beautiful day). And then tomorrow I turn around and head for Cape Cod for 2 weeks (YAY beach!) It feels like a lifetime ago that I was in Europe/Ireland.
I’ve spent the past 6 weeks on a totally different adventure: babysitting two kids (a girl age 6 and a boy, 3) in upstate, middle of nowhere New York. It was a complete change from traveling around Europe and studying in Ireland. A lot of the time it was really fun, although also pretty exhausting. It was nice to be in one place for 6 weeks though – before this the longest I had been in one place since the end of March was 2 weeks. So in some ways being in a place where there was just not a lot to do or places to go was really relaxing.
I went on a number of beautiful bike rides. I’m used to cycling through mostly-wooded areas, with lots of steep hills. The scenery up where I was was quite different – rolling hills, lots of farmland, and even on the “bigger” roads, just not very much traffic. There were also windmills up on a ridge. I love windmills – they’re so beautiful.
I also started running more – something I hope to continue. There was a great running path along what used to be the Chenango Canal, over to the airport, along the side of the runway (whoever thought you could actually run next to the runway of an airport?!) , with a view of the windmills. There were a couple times I got a beautiful sunset too.
In general I saw tons of animals. On one bike ride I saw: cows, goats, chickens, sheep, deer, a (dead) frog, horses, rabbits, woodchucks, and possibly a few others that I forget… On my runs I would often cross paths with deer, and I ran past a horse’s pasture.
Babysitting was something completely new to me. I enjoyed it, although it was pretty tiring, especially when it was hot out. There were definitely times where I just wanted OUT/to be done, but then there were times that were absolutely wonderful. I especially liked the fact that they both (although more-so the 6 year old) liked to learn about things. When I explained about something new I would instantly get her attention, and it really was instant gratification. She had a color-by-number with arithmetic book, and the 3 year old decided that he wanted to do one too. So I said “alright, we can try” and got out a big box of blocks, and we did adding and subtracting and multiplication and division with blocks. They both liked a couple of my shirts – in particular my “Pentagon, Hexagon, Oregon” one, and my “Hypotamoose” one. I told them about what a right triangle is (you can fit a square in one of the angles), and the hypotenuse is across from it. The 3 year old and I watched construction every morning while the 6 year old was at work, and the other day we saw how a giant crane formed a right triangle with the ground, and the arm of the crane was the hypotenuse. Aside from coloring and puzzles and watching trucks, we did lots of pretend, muffin making, berry picking, playing Castle Block at the playground, blasting off to the moon on the swings, having picnics, reading books, and lots of other things. I even taught them a little Irish (two nursery rhymes I know).
Two weekends ago I went (with the family, although I got the weekend off) to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, which was utterly fantastic. I’d been twice before, but this was the first time I camped there for the whole weekend. I did a LOT of contra dancing. Contra dancing at FRFF is wonderful – the dancers are all great, and the bands were so awesome. In particular, I loved a band called Giant Robot Dance. On Friday night (dances on Friday and Saturday went to 2 am) they played Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” which was so much fun to dance to. Although it was a bit hot (that’s kind of an understatement…), I had a blast. Aside from dancing, there was tons and tons of awesome music. Some favorites included: Red Molly, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, the Beatles cover session, the Harmony session, and a ton of others.
Well, I’ve just finished a delicious peach, and the train is now back to places I recognize. Under the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, past Bannerman’s Island and the blown-up castle, past Storm King, through the tunnel at Breakneck, oh hai West Point, past Anthony’s Nose, under the Bear Mountain Bridge, back into my stomping grounds, so to speak. And here’s Peekskill. Time for me to get my stuff together and prepare to get off. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
Back in the house: I’m here for around 17 hours. I leave in the morning for camping on Cape Cod for 2 weeks. YAY! It’s so weird to be here though. In the past year I’ve been here less than 4 weeks. But once I’m back it’s kind of like everything else I’ve done away from here is a dream. It’s at once completely familiar and utterly strange. I lived here 18 years, so of course everything’s familiar. Yet every time I come back it also seems like things are a little weird – not quite how I remember them. I don’t know that I can really call it home anymore, but at the same time I don’t have enough distance to call it my parents’ home.
Alright, I need to go to bed – up early to drive to the Cape!
