My friend Elizabeth has inspired me to come back here, to say something again, after months and months of not doing so. She has an amazing blog, which you should definitely read. Like now, at http://www.nosygirl.net/ .

I've been living in Oxford, Mississippi for the past eight months or so, moving from lonely place to lonely place, writing in frustrating spurts, teaching, sleeping with samurai swords, and running. I've been working on my second and third books, and also looking for a job for next fall.

I spend too much time alone, even when I am busy. Especially when I am busy. I like Oxford. It's taught me important things. My students are lovely and the literary community in Oxford is lovely, but the life of the nomad is not for me. Neither is the life of the hermit, which I currently am. I am ready to go home.

That said: an excerpt from Death in Spring by Merce Rodoreda, which I am currently attempting to work my way through for the second time.

"Another summer ended. It was as though all the dead autumns were the same, with their relentless insistence on returning. Autumn was here again. Nailed to the rock wall, from the ground to the top of the cliff, autumn was a surge of fiery leaves that would be snatched away when the sulphur-bearing wind returned, grown old and icy. Leaves fell on the village streets and on the river that carried them away. Swirling in whirlpools, they drifted to the clock tower, as far as Pedres Altes. They tumbled down, still bearing the scent of their former, tender-green selves. The sickly stems that had held the leaves all summer were now devoid of water, and they thudded to the ground as well. The leaves were blown down and swept away. We waited for the last to drop so we could rake them into piles and set fire to them. The fire made them scream. They screamed in a low voice, whistled even lower, and rose in columns of blue smoke. The smell of burn leaves pervaded houses and air. The air was filled with the cessation of being."

Beautiful.