PO-TA-TOES

I may be a man, but I still have the imagination of a 6 year old. Lately, I have been mentally fluctuating between two literary worlds, putting myself in these imaginary lands to help pass the time. The first is that of a book I am currently reading, The Road (I underlined the book title for all my teacher aunt’s to show I still remember a thing or two. Sorry for all the other grammatical mistakes), by Cormac McCarthy. I could not recommend this book enough. During my couple mile walk from one village to the next for tutoring lessons, this is the world I inhabit. The post apocolyptic realm that McCarthy created is a land where the sun has long been forgotten, a world of dark and cold and ash. Nothing lives save a sparse human population who have become cannibalistic scavenger, save a nameless father and his son.  The wander along the road, seemingly aimlessly, living off whatever they can find, starving, battling the cold, walking endless over this vast landscape of nothing but cold and dark that McCarthy describes with such a vividness that you can’t help but be awed by his mastery over the English language (The Pultizer prize committee agreed by giving his work a Pulitzer Prize in 2007). This is the world I live in as I battle the cold and snow in the sunless gray Moldovan days. Also, I look quite the part. A unkempt, mountain man beard and drab clothing hiking clothes make me look as though I have been wandering for days. A little girl asked me the other day if I knew how to shave. I replied, when the cold wind blows it protects my face. She looked at me like I was both crazy and terrifying. It helps to contrast the next world that I enter.

Look at a world map. Moldova is pretty much smack dab in the middle. Middle Earth. There aren’t better living candidates for Hobbits than Moldova. A Moldovan Village is  a house built into a hill short of being the Shire. This is a place where I am just as likely to see a small squat man in a waistcoat and cap being pulled along by a horsedrawn carriage full of hay, as I am to see a car.  Plumes of smoke waft lazily out of cozy little homes. I get to come inside my humble abode, put on my slippers, sit next to a roaring fire, and drink hot tea while eating rabbit meat and potatoes. Its a life Mr. Baggins would certainly approve of.  Now if I can find a tall grey wizard to smoke a pipe with after my rabbit and potatoes.

I believe that this is making me enjoy the winter far more than I should. I will leave it up to you to decide whether I am getting a little loopy.

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