and here i am on my grandparents' amazing property. went on a walk about with my mama marta and chatted politics diplomatically with my papa bill. i gave kisses all around, and now i'm off to bed. i've been up since 5:30 am.

the air here is the cleanest. kind of like flossing for your lungs. i stood outside and grabbed the cold grass with my toes and ate a blueberry that wasn't quite ripe and greedily breathed the air. this place has a certain...magic to it. i think it's half way the trees and calm that comes with the moss that grows on them and the moist air, but it's also the people who live here. 80 years old and still hiking up the paths every day, grooming their gardens and dancing in the kitchen when they think no one is looking. i look just like my grandmother, and i hope i can become as peaceful as she is. i love walking about with her, listening to stories i've heard and some i haven't, hearing her advice and feeling her tiny hand on my own tiny shoulder. these people remind me of no one else. i've never met anyone like them. a women who shaves her head to support her dramatic grand daughter (me), a man who teases me relentlessly but is teary with i leave. we connect more as humans than as relatives. mentors more than anything. always ready with advice. good adivce too. they asked about jmz. the women, my grandmother and her sister, came to the conclusion that things would work out. they saw it in us when we were together.

i see him in...15 days! i'm excited. anxious, in a stomach twisting way, but i know whatever happens will be the best thing for us. it's hard not to have expectations, but i think i can have them and still be circumspect about it all. understand that expectations are just that, and my imagination doesnt act as a soothsayer.

without cell phone service out here (a blessing, i tell you) i won't be able to chat with friends. at least, not with our voices. i've been known to get into people's dreams and daydreams. or so i've been told. flattery possibly.

i'm always struck by how much i resemble my grandmother. i'm sitting in the study, and looking at pictures of her in her 20s and early 30s and i have a hard time remembering that it isn't me in costume. i take that to heart. she's one of the people in this world that i truly respect and love.

alright, i'm terrible tired.