“And miles to go before I sleep; and miles to go before I sleep”
Today, Thursday, March 15, 2012 was a great day. It wasn’t a great day because I got a paycheck. It wasn’t awesome because my face was printed on the cover of some magazine. I didn’t win a new car, find out I was pregnant, win the lottery, or even have everything going my way. It wasn’t even great simply because I dedicated any hours of my time to a worthy cause (other than my job, of course), resulting in a feeling of self-importance and worth. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Thursdays are my late-start days at work, so that could have something to do with my happy mood. I slept till 9 and didn’t have to be at work till 10. My work day consisted of scheduling some kiddos for spring break, driving to Gypsum (15 miles away) for an appointment, seeing a breakthrough in that kid, making plans with that kid and mom, driving back, picking up another kid and taking him to the park on an awesomely warm spring day, doing a little documentation, then changing clothes and off to the Learning Center (old Hawthorne School—the building itself is old and cool and whimsical) for my first-ever live kickboxing class with Gloria; we then decided to drive uptown a little ways and head for coffee at Ad Astra Books and Coffeehouse, after Gloria said, “I’m pumped now; I’d like to go somewhere cool, quiet, dimly lit, with iced coffee or otherwise refreshing beverage.” I said, “Ad Astra!” And off we went.
Upon arriving, we noticed the sign out front, “Free Live Music 7pm-9pm!” We decided right then and there that we had just picked the best night ever to step into this fabulous little corner of old downtown Salina. This was Gloria’s first time in Ad Astra, and my first time being there at night--- such a neat atmosphere!! Add to that an iced caramel macchiato and a frozen chai latte, paired with live acoustic guitar, with music ranging from Ray Charles to the Beatles to Johnny Cash --- oh ,what a night! And of course, that doesn’t even include the original, handmade art, or the floor-to-ceiling shelves of BOOKS! It was fun just to browse (okay, I might have found a poetry book I want to go back and get). I was so inspired in there.
The music, the words, the poetry, the atmosphere, the gorgeous weather outside, the endorphins from the kickboxing…all combined to give me this natural high that I have not felt in a while. I have not been inspired like this in months. My fingers were itching to type !. It was such a nice escape.
The quote from a poem up top I found in that poetry book I was telling you about. It’s from one of my old favorites, Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Sigh. It brought back so many memories of falling in love with the English language and the study of the language arts! I used to read this textbook we had lying around the house – yes, a textbook. Thinking back, it must have been at least a high school level English textbook. We had three of them – one brown with pink one, one dark green one (with yellow letters), and I can’t remember the color of the other; I must have spent most of my time in these two. Anyway, my mom used to go to book fairs and stuff, and probably come home with all the stuff marked “Free”. Well, I fell in love with these books. I used to read the stories in them front to back, cover to cover. These stories inspired some of my early poetry—I used to handwrite the poems out of them into notebooks. I remember the poems were my favorite part; I would skim the table of contents looking for the italicized word, Poem, on the far right, after the “…………..”. Oh, how I loved those books! They introduced me to “…Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken”. I still am not 100% sure where they came from, or how they ended up in our house, but I know I loved them. I’ve always loved to learn. What a geek. J
