Too much fun

While there may be no such thing as having too much fun, I've definitely been having too much fun for the past week to have time to really sit and share it. Calmer Half, Tam, Roberta, and Brigid are all masters of the thinking in blog posts (or at least close enough to make quick posts during lulls in the day), but I tend to sit and think on things a while. Unfortunately, I've been having so much fun that the store of things to post about is piling up like the not-urgent mail stack.

Mammoth Caves is definitely a place I'd want to [be more fit and] take a week to explore - it's not something you can even begin to know in a couple hours, with hundreds of hidden places, stunning sights, and adventures that are just a little further away than you can get to now. That's also a fairly apt metaphor for meeting friends in Indianapolis, too, come to think of it. Like many interesting, independent, strong and skilled people, Brigid is a friend whom I have delighted in knowing for years. However, our times actually together are so brief, vivid and intense as we try to share everything that the internet cannot covey - body language, the sparkle of eyes at a joke, the impish grin when selecting ingredients and inspiration for dinner, the teasing lilt in a voice as a jar of espresso sugar is held out to "You know you want a sniff." I could spend decades in her company and still learn new surprises and new jokes as we make new memories and share older ones.

"To see a world in a grain of sand," Blake once wrote, and indeed, out of the billions on this planet, wandering through Artisano's, brunching at Zest, or sharing fries at Brugge, is a mere speck - but it is a world I dearly enjoy. And the time we spend together, fast as those days fly by before we hug goodbye, is held precious in my mind when the same amount if time spent over weeks of getting ready for work and commuting will all run together and be forgotten. Memory is not infinite or eternal, but I do my best to hold it as such, as he said "To see eternity in an hour."

I could talk about the hippie store, and the food, but the important parts were the way that hippie store's excellent chocolate saved the mood when stuck on a closed highway on the way back, or the laughter while we all shared the fries and anecdotes. It's not the dog fur, it's the way Barkley conned a sleepy Calmer Half into a walk at 4am (better not to ask.)

I miss 'em, and look forward to the next visit. Some nice weather day when I have time enough, I need to show up in a Taylorcraft, with a "will fly for food" sign. Barkley will share the couch for the toll of a stolen shoe, I'm sure. Till then, stay safe, my friends.