Today I arrived in our capital city, for the beginning of a four week stay. Even upon landing, the differences between Halifax and Ottawa become more strikingly apparent. It simply put is more metropolitan. The people are more urbanized as a rule--like wearing high heeled shoes to the grocery store urbanized. More arts, more museums, more en francais, more politics. I bought a Globe and Mail in the airport, and I was again reminded that the politicians they talk about, make their home in the city I will be living in for the next month.
As my cab, to the tune of a $28.00 fare, pulled up to Augustine College I was enveloped with a sense of familiarity. I spent a week here two summers ago, and not much has changed. It still is a magnificent two storey character home, with creeping ivy cloaking the exteriour, spacious rooms, hardwood floors, period appropriate furniture, noble bookcases brimming with volumes upon volumes of treasures. The living room has no television, but rather reading lights mounted to the wall behind every chair, a piano, and boardgames on the shelves. It is a room designed to nurture conversation, human interaction and enriching the mind. Almost as soon as I got here I found myself slipping into using vocabulary that has remained dormant for some time, as I here words like precocious, and austere used in everyday conversation with ease around me.
The air is thick and heavy, descending on the city like a wet blank today, as we were showered from above relentlessly. I apprecitated my access to automotive transportation at home as I walked several blocks with my cumbersome parcels from the grocery store. Yet as I sit in my room, with the windows open and the fan circulating the humidity, I am somewhat enchanted with this place. Being here amplifies my desire to read and to read endlessly. I want to devour the Word, and Lewis, and Kreeft, and Tolstoy, and Potok, and ... It seems that some places exhilarate my appetite for learning and betterment of my mind, whereas others only dampen it, and coax me to mental lethargy. I cannot yet pin-point what factors make this difference, but I know that when I have a home of my own, I want it to promote the former not the later!
1 comment:
Sounds like a warm, inviting place to be...Augustine College.
Hopefully you will get to enjoy sunshine and warm weather while you are there. I had heard it was extremely hot and sunny in the weeks previous to now.
Not surprising that reading continues to be a passion. It could be that in some places, you have more time for reading and less distraction of the world. No doubt you will eventually pinpoint what makes this work.
Enjoy the week. Looking forward to seeing you on the weekend.
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