winter winter everywhere - a dirge

i am in a bit of a quandary. i don't want to spend much money because i am trying to save for our big road trip and our wedding. and yet i am absolutely dying to go somewhere, to get far away from here for a couple days at least. to see the ocean, to take a long walk, to cry in the wind. i am restless and stir crazy. darin, as you all know, has been in rather ill health for the last few months. i have tried to be supportive but it is starting to drive me crazy. partly because i feel guilty for being healthy and wanting to frolic around, and anyway i feel like there's no one to frolic with. all my friends are either in school (rebecca, carolann, doniella) or totally in love and removed to the country (mary). i miss friends like kim and nichole who i can actually go out on the town with and be girly and talk about girly things, as well as big things sometimes. i wrote nichole a letter today. i need to be inspired.

it is cold and dry and dry and gray and cold. we are using up all the wood and propane, and our house is still huge and empty and cold cold cold. but all the plants and bushes and fields are brown and dry, because there is no rain. darin is sick and it will never rain and i don't know what the spring will bring. it has been a month with no moisture in the air, no rain, no release from the dry crackle static in my hair and my sallow dry skin and the sad look in my eyes.

i want the ecstasy of escape. that is what i want right now. even if it is just driving past crooked jaggedy black skeletons of grapevines and oak trees. at least at the end of the road i will see the ocean. just like the river yesterday. i drove down to coloma and sat by the river. it was sluggish and sad and fading away. the embankments are brown rocky dirt. there are no green little enclaves or sparkling ripples. just a few sad geese honking about, looking at the emptiness. it seemed stagnant, but i had to remember, this river goes to the sea. this river goes to the sea. this river goes to the sea.

sorry guys. this is a terribly pathetic first blog entry.