a river runs through it (AA4b)

Katie and I are finding a new pace for our life, now that we are getting past the travel and tourist aspects of our trip.

We are settling into our own routines, here on the edge of the mountains. I’m on sabbatical, which implies rest but in modern academia involves a set of expectations about the scholarly life.

I’m reading in the morning, thinking more about the life of the mind in general than the specificity of scholarship in particular. Currently that means I’m reading about pedagogy, theology and generosity: Kronman’s Education’s End, Piper’s A Sweet and Bitter Providence, and Bennett’s The True Saint Nicholas.

Katie just finished Klassen’s The Apothecary’s Daughter and River’s The Atonement Child. She’s well into Shelley’s Frankenstein. We interrupt each other and read aloud with the gracious insolence of life-long lovers. (I’m clearly going to have to reread Shelley.)

In the afternoon, during siesta, we sit at a coffee shop downtown while all the shops are closed. I have café con leche and she has té con leche, while I write and she emails or Skypes her business associates and clients.

Before returning to the house for a light supper, we take a walk along the river that runs through town, as a mountain breeze wafts down the valley and couples sit along the bank sipping maté.

Yes, it’s an idyllic life, albeit a brief one. And strangely invigorating—my head spins with the possibilities. I want to write things, and start things and do things, more than time or opportunity allows.

But the streams of consciousness are the fountains of significance. I’m grateful for this chance to walk beside a river of ideas.