A Lord of the Rings quote, as I hope you realize (Legolas, from Return of the King). For those of you not learned in Tolkien-lore, Legolas, a Sindarin wood-elf, is relating his reaction at hearing the cries of the gulls on the shores of the Great Sea, across which his people have been and are being called...okay, this will get too complicated to explain easily, or quickly. Suffice it to say he's homesick, in a really roundabout way.  Tolkien (later) includes some of his (I think) excellent, simple poetry to illustrate this, the first two lines being:

To the Sea, to the Sea! The white gulls are crying,

The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying. 

Anyway, this is all relevant because, maybe a bit like Legolas, I'm feeling pretty homesick these days. Included in this blog is a picture I took last August while home in Maine. I was standing on the deck of the ferry my father works on as it traveled from Bass Harbor to Swan's Island, an outlying settlement (knowing, as I do, people from Swan's Island, I hesitate to call it civilized, heh) off the coast of Mount Desert. Little pleasure boats like the one in the picture are a dime a dozen out there, at least in the summer months...Cape Cod lobstah boats are much more common once the weather grows inclement enough to drive the tourists away south, muttering obscenities about how cold it is.

This would be sometime around the middle of September. Pennsylvania doesn't know the meaning of "winter."

But anyway, as I think I posted a few days ago, I saw a wayward flock of gulls picking over the parking lot at work last week (look at all that totally unintentional consonant repetition!), and haven't felt quite right since. By "quite right" I mean content in my surroundings, I suppose...I've had this overpowering urge to return home. The gulls were, no doubt, more than just a catalyst; seagulls don't simply remind me of home, they practically are home. (Very intelligent birds, too, I might add, although us Mainers are inclined to think otherwise once they've crapped all over our car windows, sidewalks, and, in one humorous instance, my uncle's head.) Even though these gulls were a different breed, I suddenly felt not as though they were out of place, nor me, but that everything else was out of whack. Weird, I know, but there you have it.

The two weeks I spent up home last summer, when I took this picture, were really great. I got to see my dad, which is somewhat rare (you don't even want to know the hours the Maine Ferry Service demands of its employees), all the rest of my family, and those few of my friends still anchored here and there along the rocky coasts of the Pine Tree State. The weather was beautiful, as it so often is up there, and there was none of the horrible, accursed, vile, wretched (insert more negative adjectives as you think them up) humidity that festers Pennsylvania throughout the summer months. God, how I hate humidity.

I was filled with hope for the start of the semester at SVC, but literally had no idea what to expect. Then, standing on the rocking deck of the ferry (whose name I have, woefully, forgotten), I didn't know anything of the awesomeness of monks, the insane but endearing layout of Placid and Headmaster Halls, the baneful trek each morning up the hill from Lot A, or how devious my arch-nemesis Kylie is. I knew nothing of my latent love for philosophy, which I've since decided to minor in (and am mulling over a double major), nor how sweet Latin is (especially dactylic hexameter). I did know how much math makes my skull hurt, and that hasn't changed; but I didn't know I'd get a math professor who severely mitigates the culture shock of English brain-meats encountering mathematical monstrosities. On top of that, he's a great guy, and forgives me for the unbelievable messes that are my exam booklets...incoming students, be sure you get Mr. Whiteside for your math classes.

I should probably get some of the proverbial shut-eye, what with work in, like, 6 hours. It's going to be a madhouse today...working retail around holidays is truly a sobering experience. But maybe I'll have the gulls to keep me company for a while.

Happy Easter, everyone! Pax vobiscum.