The Home Edition
I came home for Easter on Thursday night. Got in around 9:30PM. Watched ER with mom, then crashed and fell asleep. Woke up late on Friday. Did nothing. Woke up late on Saturday, went to Gettysburg, PA.
Gettysburg has this calming effect on me. In my honors sophomore english class we studied Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey...part of the meaning we realized (if I remember correctly) lay in the healing and calming effects of nature. Wordsworth felt he needed to retire to nature every couple of years in order to recharge, and rest, and become his old self again, and felt all humanity shared the same need. I share the same sentiment, and practice it. Gettysburg has been that place to which I go to contemplate, and recharge. It's incredibly peaceful (as long as you ignore the tourists) and one can get a sense of the way the town was before the battle. Once one has that sense, my natural pondering is always, why? why then, why here, why? It's a complete juxtaposition, the bringing of war to such a peaceful area: surrounded by farms and hills. That leads, naturally enough, into the questioning of the characters of the men who played a part here: Lee, Meade, Jackson, Chamberlain...some were soldiers, some scholars. Again, the juxtapositions are fascinating. And they lead one to ponder, rest, reflect and enjoy.
Or thats what happens to us, me and my father, anyway. We just drive around the auto tour, and walk through the sites, usually stopping at a few poignant ones: Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the Virginia Monument that marks the spot where Pickett's charge began. Its just a field in front of you, a farmer's field, devoid of trees, or cover of any time. Your imagination spins painting the thousands of men who walked across the field in one last ditch effort to keep the Confederacy together. Standing side by side, one after the other...the mind boggles. One last effort at solidarity. "Out of the fifty-five hundred men which Pickett took into action, fourteen hundred and ninety-nine surrendered, two hundred and twenty-four were killed, and eleven hundred and forty were reported wounded." A line of men that long, to me, is staggering to comprehend.
We had a good trip. It's only about an hour from home in Baltimore, and we made it in good time, and had an excellent day.
Today we had my uncle over, and just kind of were "peaceful." I wrote a paper for Film as Art that may be due Tuesday, or Wednesday. 4 1/2 pages on the movie "This is Spinal Tap." Comm majors have it easy.
I drive back to La Salle today with a clear head...contributed to by nature and also through the paper being done.
"From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being. "