Holidays/Travels

It was good to see all the friends and family over the holidays, but I'm glad to be back. After a week of driving everywhere and drinking in the humidity, it was refreshing to wake up to a cool cloudy day, throw on a wool coat and hat in case of rain, and walk. The route was typical - market to get fruit and vegetables for the early part of the week, park to gaze at the snowy mountains across the sound, home for lunch... then wander over to the downtown mall area and watch people rush the end of year sales. (That and I'm still on a casual search for a 3 button tweed jacket in a primarily grey hue)

While in NC Allison asked about nostalgia - if there were any places that I missed. This was in Raleigh, so that was pretty simple - no. We went to the usual places - NeoMonde, O'Malleys, so on, but that's because they're good rather than there being any specific memories associated with them. This isn't new, and it is how I've thought since probably grade school, but I perpetually live in the future - nearly everything I do in the present is merely working toward a better life later.

I started to see this trend about my last year in Raleigh... and started getting away from the computers/books weekend mornings to walk. Living on Hillsboro St made this feasible... walked the neighborhood streets to see normal families live normal weekend lives... walked downtown to the small farmers market... walked through parks and past ongoing baseball/soccer games... it seemed a way to get some sense of social normalcy after a decade of living in textbooks and computer based jobs. Looking back... the times spent wandering around on a not-yet-sweltering-hot spring/summer/fall morning were perhaps what I appreciated most during my time there.

This trend continued after the move back Charlotte and was successful for a while, but after the first year or so the free time graph went to zero and stayed there. Moving to the house didn't help matters, since it required its own share of time in addition to work and school... so I left that life.

It may be a side effect of the technology driven life I've chosen, but for an hour a day, and many a weekend morning, it is important to see the world at walking pace.