Appalachia Year

Spinach salad with mandarin oranges, goat cheese, ginger vinaigrette.

Ever since Sjanneke and I knew we'd both be living in Athens for grad school this fall, we started making survival plans. Weekly Family Dinners. Scrabble and wine on the porch. Carpooled trips to Columbus to see our respective dudes.

A week passed. Classes started. Today is my long day at school, and after a week of fruitless, HILLY treks around and around this place on my bike trying to track down a key for my car, a spirit-deflating courseload, and meals eaten alone in front of my computer, I needed Family Dinner.

The ominous thunderclouds, the quick-setting sun in a still-strange town, the fact that my back was killing me - I presented myself with an airtight case for waiting several hours for Sjan, and more importantly, her car to be free to drive me to the grocery store. But I'm trying not to be that girl anymore, so I flicked on my bike's headlight and set out to find the "bike path along the river" that I'd heard about. And the scenery as I spun along the bends in the Hocking was vast, saturated green, astounding. As I rode home from Kroger, it was dusky-dark and the gnats along the riverbed were madly spraying me in the face. I was wiping gnats from my cheeks and forehead like mud spatters and laughing out loud to myself at how absurd it was. When I got home and looked in the mirror they were in my eyelashes and the corners of my mouth. I took a shower and Sjanneke came over and we ate forever.

Riding my bike to Kroger for groceries is something I did in Columbus all the time, but I've spent so much time up in my head this week, solitary and unstimulated, that this was practically narcotic. I nearly cried. I don't know. It made me feel like a person.