Soft Eyes

This is an old man in a big tree. Consider yourself warned, children. The baobabs are out there.

I can not now remember whether it was in a letter, email, phone call, or meflaquine dream (I have extremely vivid but often pleasant dreams on the second or third day after I take my anti-malarial medication) but my mother reminded me to keep my eyes soft recently. This means to look ahead to the goal, but not be so focused that I don't see the obstacle before me or the dangers beside me. It's a literal thing, good for horseback riding and other moving sports (for example biking), but I've been thinking about it in a more figurative way lately. That's all.

I had a dream (exceedingly vivid, of course, because if it were like my normal dreams I would never have remembered it) about coming home from my service. In typical dream fashion, I met up with Daddy, Ella, and Dougie on Main Street in Pine Bush (not the airport...) and we happened to bump into Scott H, who in my dream owned a restaurant. We invited him out for pizza, but he said he had to go relieve his wife at the restaurant so we went with him and we all had steaks, even Dougie. This struck me as pretty odd because in my dream both Dougie and Scott were vegetarians, and I actually sort of sat back and wondered about it breifly before we got up and left the restaurant and Scott. Then we went to the library and snow was falling.

I bought some colored pencils and sometimes I sketch things now. Maybe by the time I get back I'll be an artist like Ella. Probably not, though. It's all good. It makes me happy to sit and sketch sometimes, so a banna. Other than that, nothing much has happened to me. Life is village is peaceful, and the things that seemed so exciting, so pressing... they don't qualify for a blog post, methinks. For example, I spent 4 or 5 hours at the butiki, chatting with some people, and in order to show his gratitude, the butiki owner gave me a big bag full of beans the next day. In the Malian way, he gave it to Sam to give to me. Sam's checking up on my cat for me this evening, in case any of you were worried about her all alone in my house. Not that I'm worried. Ahem.

Anyway, in general I'm quite well and I hope you're all equally well! Send me a message sometime soon! Happy early Halloween, in case I don't get back here before then. There are new photos in my facebook album if you're interested.