In The Garden

I see that they (the administration/grounds) is still taking care of the grass at Perry.  In the beginning of the year, the vibrancy chairs were slowly being consumed by the vines in the Perry House garden but they are clean now and left with plenty of space to sit in silence and solidarity.  The last few times I've been to my site at Perry I couldn't help but think about the current ambiguity of the House's future.  It is strange how, once the students came together, the lawn vines were finally cut back.  Would it have been so bad for the vibrancy chairs to be swallowed by the vines?  Is it worse that the chairs are free from their plant captors, but left on their own?  Its almost like they are symbolic of the culture of Perry House.  Either the vibrancy of the house is to be swallowed up and claimed by someone else or it is to be left on its own, there to be looked at but never to be integrated into the whole. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

As for what I did at my site that day, I marveled at the warm weather (I was there on Tuesday) and I finally stepped through the stone archway.  I had been avoiding that all semester because I liked to imagine that there was another world amongst the bramble of the otherside.  I sat down on the steps and I sang songs though I'm not quite sure why.  It felt right.

This week at my site I wasn't quite sure what to do or what to think about.  So I decided that I would just play around.  I took off my boots and socks and walked around barefoot and played with shadows.  Despite being not much of a nature girl, I love feeling the grass and the earth underneath my feet.  During the summer I am constantly in my parents' backyard with no shoes on.  The earth was cool underneath my feet. It was hard but at the same time it had a comfortable give.  I felt cushioned.  The hills and valleys hidden in the grass were also a lot easier to sense with barefeet which I thoroughly enjoyed.

There is a wall of dragonflies preventing me from getting to my destination.  I'm letting them prevent me. 

I have never seen so many dragonflies in one place and I don't like it.  It is amusing how I depicted the dragonflies in beautiful jewel colors when I really  don't like them at all.  Below is my watercolor from my experience.

This is my post that was due on Thursday.  I sprained my ankle this week and end up on crutches at the end of the week, so walking to my spot by Perry House became impossible.  Or, not impossible, but suddenly it involved a lot more energy on my part.  It became so much farther away even though the garden is still the exact same measured distance from my dorm. 

I live in Merion a very centrally located dorm which is a good part of its appeal to me.  But, when relegated to crutches, it seems a lot less appealing.  I remember walking from the health center back to Merion after being given the crutches and thinking that I would never make it back to my room.  That slightly inclined driveway by cartref became a mountain.  I was panting by the time I got to the road by Dalton.  My underarms were beginning to feel battered and bruised...later I would look to see deep red marks and splatters where I assume some of my veins had burst.  My good leg, my left leg, was burning and my arms were startng to shake from bearing so muc weight.  I had to pause and rest three or four times on my way back to my room.  This experience replicated itself everytime I had to go out that day...and all I kept thinking about was getting myself to Perry House to do this post.  I didn't get there, although I suppose I could have asked the Lantern van to take me there at night.  However, I'm not a fan of being in secluded out door spaces by myself at night.  I decided to cross that bridge when I have two good ankles on w

As I stood in the garden adjacent to Perry House the sounds held most of my attention and although many of them came from man-made instruments, it was the sounds that came from the leaves, wind and non-human life that were most memorable.  To illustrate my response to my environment I am providing the following video.  It captured how musical and harmonized the outside "natural" world sounded to me that afternoon.  If I could find a piece of music that had a few instances of man-made sounds such as people talking, cars driving by and airplanes overhead, I would add that.  Maybe I'll keep looking.