Texture: Apples

the best of things

We bicycled a long way today, some 35 miles over rolling hills, hills gentle enough, but challenging enough, too, for our unpracticed legs. I was in a sort of bliss, gliding through air, gliding along pavement, gliding through the farm lands on the farm roads, scooting along under my own power on a good bicycle. Canal Trail to Pittsford, County Road 64 to Mendon, to Bloomfield. Then the turning farm roads. Gauss Rd, Green Rd, Bishop Hill Rd. Gliding through the countryside is the best thing, along the seldom-travelled roads. It was hillier, but still reminded me of Skåne. You can't return to a time, and you can't really return to a place—they change—but you can return to a state of mind.

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My advisor had a good little party—barbecue—at his vacation house in the country, which is on a hill, by a pond, and which he bought from Marshak when Marshak moved away. The upstairs is airy and open and centered on a hearth. A few other professors and their spouses and their kids were the other guests. The pond was swum in, and Adrian ever played the host, with ice cream and chocolate cake for the kids, who played American football in the grass below. I enjoy the timelessness of it all. We need more of this.

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Now most of Ant Hill is gathered in the attic, where I type. It is the impromptu Ant Hill orchestra. Jimmy on electric guitar, Adam on the keyboard, Kevin on a mic and snare drum and advocating the loop pedal, Bree with her violin, Emma smiliing away from a couch and Luke running around putting everything in order. It is all a good thing, too. (I wish I played something, but I am too timid to pick anything up. Instead I type quietly in the dark.)

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Yesterday Bree and I went to a film at the Dryden. Today we bicycled the Canal Trail into the country. All of this is pretty much the life for which Rochester is optimal.