aspens

Today I want to go back here. Yesterday in Russian class, we read the Turgenev story "Meeting." He complains about aspen trees, how they are always babbling, noisy. Reading that line brought me back to this place, Elks Meadow State Park, where I went hiking alone at the end of my summer in Colorado. I had never been hiking solo before and it was a clarifying and uplifting experience. I'd never encountered aspens before--only birch trees--and I fell in love with them. But Turgenev was right about their noisiness. When the wind blows, it plays through the leaves of the aspens, causing them to sound exactly like rushing water. I found it deceptively beautiful; when I first heard them, I kept looking around for the source of the water. Was it a creek over that hill? A waterfall beyond the forest? No, only this little grove of trees, calling out.

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Angela recently posted an interview she conducted with me about one of my personal heroes, Woolf. In the interview, I try to explain why I love her as I do.
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Spring break starts today! I'll be headed to Southern Pines for this first weekend and then home for the duration of the break--aiming to finish my thesis and make an assortment of wedding-related decisions. I can't wait to go home.