I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew.
Of wind I sang: a wind there came, and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea;
and by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden tree.
Beneath the stars of Evereve in Eldamar it shone,
in Eldamar beside the walls of elven Tirion.
There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
while here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the elven-tears.
O Lorien! the winter comes, the bare and leafless day.
The leaves are falling in the stream; the river flows away.
O Lorien! too long I have dwealt upon this hither shore,
and in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me?
What ship would bear me, ever back, across so wide a Sea?

I really do sympathise with Artanis at times. She left her home and parents to trek across the equivalent of Antartica, on foot, in the middle of winter, with the vast majority of her cousins and her four older siblings. When she arrived in a new - or perhaps old - land, she had to learn a new language and shift her worldview from one of peace to one of constant war with no hope of an end. Although she married and was very happy with her spouse, her four older brothers died, slowly, one after the other, until only she was left. Her daughter was brutalised and retreated into her own mind, and thence across the Sea. Her niece was killed. The country that she had worked so hard to build faded into nonexistence. Eventually, though she was given leave to return to her original home, she found her kingdom fading; she herself was left with no means of return.

What a tragedy - and some would say that she brought it on herself.

Meet Comet.

He's eight weeks old, with an abundance of white fluff and dark brown eyes. He doesn't know his own name, yet, but then, he's the newest and youngest of the family, so that's okay. Howling seems to be his favorite pastime, with cuddling as a close second. New people intrigue him, and he makes friends quickly.

Come see him!

I'm sitting on a balcony watching the day come up. You might say I'm overlooking the park; really, though, I can't even see it through all the trees and the creek. The sparrows are chasing each other, and the hummingbirds have been making their strange rattling calls for an hour, now. I never knew before that they were the early birds, so to speak.

The trees were more somber, at first, but now the sun is darting through the oaks and slanting golden arrows across the green leaves. Soon, it will play off of the hoarded dew of the grass, and emerald blades will flash white diamonds back.

Sometimes it's good to remember that life is green as well as red.

Home again, home again, on steady ground....

Yes, I am back, a bit sore, a bit sun-burned, somewhat fatigued. Vacations, while nice, have always been rather hectic, and this latest no less. And, of course, now I ponder the nature of Home. I do not think it is to me the same as it is to Joy, nor to Steve - though closer, it is not as it was for Papa.

What makes a home, truly? At what point can it be called such? The cliché would say that home is where the heart and the family is, but that is not it, for then I would regard a hotel room as home, let alone my grandparents house in Colorado. No. Home is not simply where one's family is - but then where is it? What is it?

Today we spent several hours in the car, resigned, watching the heavens spill their "gifts" upon us. An additional hour was spent at a park, huddled shivering for a packed lunch, before dashing through the rain to the safe haven of the van. From there we drove, wondering if the rain would ever stop, to the tourist shops at the foot of Box Canyon. My mother, a some-time resident of Colorado, was dismayed. "It never rains here!"

How ironic.

The tourist shops were standard tourist shops, though the mountains in the direct background were unusual enough to draw the eye. We hadn't wanted to hike up to the waterfall before hitting the shops. The prospect of being caught on the trail as yet more rain poured down was not an attractive one - yet, when we finished with the stores, the clouds were still as they ever were, and less threatening than they had been an hour before. To the waterfall it was, then.

It is a two-part hike, barely deserving of the name, but the ease of access does not diminish the splendor. First, we walked - perhaps 500 feet, not more - along the river to the fall itself. The metal catwalk was decidedly incongruous compared to the fluted hollows of the cliffwalls, but the thunder of the eager water stole all attention. Mist pressed in against us, hesitating just shy of drenching skin and clothing. In all truth, it was magnificent.

Compared to the second part, I do not remember it at all.

Returning to the beginning of the "trail," we embarked on the more difficult - for small children, at least - hike. This time, we were scaling a muddy path at more sheer angles, skidding along rain-slick stones and soil. At the end of our climb was another catwalk, this time at the peak of the mountain, suspended three hundred feet above the roaring rapids below. Again, the sight alone would be impressive, and so it was. But then... then, there were the butterflies, tiny wingéd things of white-yellow, cream, no larger than a dime.

Of course I've seen butterflies before. So have you, I would wager. I have stood above falls before and gazed, awestruck, at the majesty. But never have I seen something so small, so fragile and seemingly ethereal, flutter so far above such driving power, crossing unheeding from one side of the chasm to the next. It was not as watching a bird navigate the twisting stone. A sea-gull or a swift carries a sensation of control and strength in its flight. A butterfly bears nothing of the same, lifted and borne upon the wind's whimsy.

Somehow, the sight of such a small and delicate creature, drifting erratic above the churning water, imparted a sense of... weakness. Awe. Wonder. The feeling of standing on uncertain ground, not knowing quite whether it should hold or give way into the unknown. The touch of the numinous and sacred. Had I been raised other, I might have knelt, might have crossed myself. But I am myself, and as I watched those tiny butterflies, I whispered:

Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.

For several years, now, I've struggled with every child's question: What do I want to be (when I grow up?) What do I want to do? What do I want from life, and what do I want to give back? When I look back, forty, sixty, eighty years from now - what do I want to see?

It seems an impossible question. There are so very many things I enjoy doing, and not a single one for which I have an actual passion. Manifold are the careers to which I could be drawn, and yet there is no one that raises head and shoulders above the rest. How to choose? when the knowledge of the road not taken is already pressing, and I know all too well that my time is running out.

The fear of time may seem absurd when, it is true, I am not yet eighteen and have a prospective eighty years yet to live. However, in this age, it is the young who are the shapers of the future, and it is in youth that choices are made to launch a life. So, then. I need to choose, and soon. But how?

I was gifted with advice from one who has been journeying longer than I, and it seems sage - or, perhaps, only weighted with the wisdom of millenia. "Know thyself." Simple, no? Find the values, the intrinsic foundations of my character, and learn who I am. Assess these, and decide whether I truly desire to change them. From there - examine the choices available, and choose which will be most compatible and fulfilling.

Sage indeed, and, as all such, deceptively simple. Who am I? Which features form my core? I am self-directed; I do not take well to orders. I yearn for knowledge, and for understanding beyond that, for objectivity that is impossible to attain and the more precious for the striving. I see things that could be remedied if only time and patience and thought were applied to the problem, and I desire to see that thought applied. Yet that is not all of me, I think: these alone do not shape me.

Who am I?

It is a conundrum I will need to examine carefully and at length, if ever I hope for success.

I leave for Colorado tomorrow morning, and all my family with me. It will be interesting - I think. I'll need to take an adapter for the laptop, for the two-day drive. After all, "the Road goes ever on and on..."

When the Road has gone far ahead, will I hasten with eager feet, or turn back toward the lighted rooms of my home?

The other day, I had a run-in with a small black kitten - and now, I find myself reluctant to go back to the park.

Several weeks ago, I was watching Eight Below next to twelve-year-old Ciara. For those who haven't seen it, the plot revolves around a team of sled-dogs accidentally left in Antartica for the winter. At one point, a husky slips down an ice face and dies.

"Isn't that sad?" Ciara asked, turning to me, not quite believing that I could be so callous as to be unaffected by the dog's 'death'.

"No," I told her. "That's not sad. That's just life - just nature."

I have a reputation - not undeserved - for being emotionally distant and aloof in regards to catastrophe. I am a realist, though I often veer toward pessimism, and I don't worry myself over things I can't affect. Natural Geographic has been on my list of things watched and enjoyed for quite a while now, and I've never had a problem with the fact that "Nature is red in tooth and claw." My pet cat used to catch birds, drag them to my windowsill, and pluck and eat them there as I watched. When my sister's dog caught and killed her rabbit, I was the only one not crying. Unpreventable catastrophes just don't bother me.

Which, of course, is why my sisters and friend did not understand my position on the kitten.

It was a very young thing, no more than eight weeks old, and very affectionate - not feral at all, coming up unhesitatingly to rub against your ankles and purr. One could see from looking at it that it was going to be a very stunning cat, as it matured, with medium-length fur, large gold eyes, and very long legs - it looked almost like a purebred Siamese or Balinese, or perhaps some Egyptian breed. This was decidedly at odds with the fact that it was no thicker than my hand viewed sideways, with all of its ribs easily visible. It followed us across the entire park over the course of several hours, not relenting at all, and I fought quite hard to bring it home, or, failing that, to see it safe - and spayed and paid for - at my grandmother's orchard. I failed - but the lack of understanding was still there.

Where is the difference between a dog dying an accidental, unpreventable death, and this kitten's impending death of starvation? Simply put, one is preventable, on a number of levels. There was absolutely nothing that could be done for the dogs on the movie. Flying into Antartica in the middle of winter, in a storm, is suicide, far more often than not, and a dog's life is not worth a human's. On the other hand, this small kitten would cost very little in the way of money, and nothing in the way of life or limb. But it was deeper than that- I was angry.

Oh, granted, I was angry and frustrated with the obstacles preventing me from bringing it to a safe place, but it runs deeper than that. This was more of an outrage over negligence. It can cost as little as ten dollars to have a cat spayed and prevent a litter of unwanted kittens - it's a simple operation, both in money and in time. It was an oversight on the part of the owner - and there's no doubt that there was an owner - the kitten was far too socialized to be feral, or to have a feral dam. Failing that, the litter born, it's not terribly difficult to find homes for kittens, especially such beautiful and friendly ones at such a young age. Even if no homes could possibly be found, the animal shelter was a viable alternative. But the sheer disdain required to dump them somewhere to starve - that is what angered me, and that is why I was - am - so adamant on the matter.

The kitten did get taken in by a family who could ill afford to do so, having five cats already. Why, then, do I avoid the park? ....There were two kittens. One, after a short distance, decided to follow another set of walkers, and I do not want to see it again. Maybe I'm afraid. Maybe I'm angry.

Maybe I just don't care what I am, when I can do nothing to fix what should be an easily remedied problem.