knowing I am only clean
'cause you promised me I'm clean..
Diary,
It is 86 degrees outside, and only partly cloudy. We've gone, in traditional New York fashion, from winter to summer. In two weeks.
My mother is mourning her tulips. I am wearing shorts and a tank top and thanking God for such beautiful weathr. I mean, for crying out loud, it's 86 degrees and the sun is out!
It's also May. In two months, it'll be time to go to Virginia. As it draws closer I find myself anticipating so many things, remembering things that have happened in past years.. wonder what it will be like this time.
Everything from the tactile memories of getting dust and soft pine needles in my shoes to the visual memory of rain hitting the water by the commons building. I miss my friends, I miss the place, I miss the warmth and the safety that surround me for that one blessed week.
And in two months, it'll be time to go. This'll be the first year that I'm one of the drivers. It reminds me of some ways of the way that the Jews 2000 years ago made their yearly trek to Jerusalem, to worship, to fellowship, to make sacrifices.
And so this is the year I begin to learn the route as we go on our own yearly pilgrimage or whatever it should be called. I feel like we should be riding camels.
It gets really hot and muggy in Virginia, though, so I'm glad we have cars. I have yet to see a camel with air conditioning.
It would be fun to stop outside the city limits and steal camels from the zoo or something if there's anything like that in Richmond and then we could hop onto their backs and gallop onto the campus of the University of Richmond, our bathrobes streaming out behind us, the scarves on our heads whipping in the wind as we screamed out a rousing cry of greeting to our fellow conference-goers, suitcases tied to the saddles, waving big sticks around our heads as we rode.
If I knew someone who had a camel, I'd ask if I could practice on it so that I'd know how to ride a camel the right way. I bet it's different from riding a horse.
I'm afraid the closest I'll get to a camel around here is a cow or a llama. Hmm.
A llama would be fun.
I could gallop around in llama circles and practice my rousing cries for the end of June.
HIYYYYYYYEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAA! *gallop*
Love,
Beth
Erev shel shoshanim
Nyztey nah el habustan
Mor b'samin ulivona
L'raglekh miftan
Lyla yored l'at
V'ruakh shoshan noshva
Hava elkash lalh shir balat
Zemer shel ahavah
Shakhar homah yonah
Roshekh maley t'lalim
Pikh el haboher shoshana
Ektefenu li
(It is an evening of roses
Let us go out to the grove
Myrrh, spices and incense
Are a carpet for you to tread
Night comes upon us slowly
And a breeze of roses is blowing
Let me whisper a song to you quietly
A song of love
It is dawn, a dove is cooing
Your hair is filled with the dew
Your lips are like a rose to morning
I will pick it for myself.)
Erev Shel Shoshanim
today, too?