The Return to Hog River

Thursday after work, I made a flying trip to my alma mater in Hartford to order transcripts, drop off recommendation forms for professors (which are due too soon for me to mail), and take CDs of my recital to a couple people. [The muddy torrent that flows through the center of campus and floods every stinkin' time it rains is affectionately called "Hog River" by the students. I always thought that was its name, until I heard an admissions person giving a student tour and saying the real name, and explaining that the students all call it Hog River. I still don't even know the real name...]

Anyway, the Man from Hog River returned to Hog River--back to old stomping grounds.

It was sooooo weird!

I haven't been there since May (which is an unusually long hiatus since I did summer school the previous two summers). And now, here I am again! It is SO familiar, the new school year is in full swing, and yet I am completely detached from it all. I saw plenty of people I knew from classes or playing in my recital, but no one I knew well enough to talk to much. Even so, it was rather an unworldly experience...checking the bulletin boards...but wait! Where's my ninety-pound backpack and my planner full to overflowing of projects I should be tackling? Have I got in my hour of voice practice yet in the miserably drab and hot practice rooms? Um, yeah. It was strange to be back. And yes, I sort of longed to be learning again, despite the unwanted pressures of it all. I know it's a cliche, but you appreciate what you had more once you can look back on it. I definitely miss music school.

I ran to the school library after my errands to savor the blazing fast internet, and catch up on video blogs from the summer (aka, watch Drew M. for about three hours...haha, thanks Liane!). I hadn't seen the Red Sox/Braves vlog or the Calloway Gardens one, either, so got those, too. The other day at work I was listening to Robin Bullock's Green Fields (which I recommended on my blog a year ago), and was euphorically inspired to make a video blog using that music as the background. It was so perfect! I've been inspired before many times to use his music for a slide show of pix, too. Pretty much every time I listen to it I think that I need to use it for background for SOMETHING! Brad used my favorite track for the vlog with the calapitter where Claire kept asking for ice cream. Oh, well. So then I sit down to watch the Red Sox/Braves vlog and LO AND BEHOLD! another Green Fields piece! Probably the second best one for media use! I feel so betrayed! It's like he stole my ideas before I even had them.

And then I got dinner at the same Subway where I ate dinner the Friday before my recital. Another flashback to a previous life. The last time I ate there I was on the other side of a huge mountain unlike any other, facing it with trembling knees. Now it feels like the distant past.

Then, as I cut across on secondary roads to get from the Subway to the fastest route to the highway, I relished the fact that I know my way around that area like none of the rest of you. It's kind of interesting to have a little spot on the planet that only you know how to navigate really well, and that you can find the local ways to get from here to there because you've used them. My first year, especially, I spent time in my car just exploring to find out where roads went and taking alternate routes. And all of that knowledge still remains even though I will probably never live there again in my life. Strange.

And then I came home, indulging in a Blizzard on the way. (When I realized in the morning that I would pass a DQ on the trip, I almost leaped from my chair and danced a jig in my cubicle, but instead I bottled it up and sort of "skip-frolicked" during my afternoon walk, after being SURE no one was in sight.)