through those woods and past the trains

Yesterday I drove nine hours north, my cats intermittently squalling in their carrier on the front seat next to me. We're camping out for the holidays in my mother's painting studio, living with the Botticelli studies and works in progress. The smells always make me kind of nostalgic, because when I was a kid, before we built this house, my mama painted in the kitchen.

The thing I've enjoyed most about watching Due South - and I'll post more on that anon, promise (I just realized that in this context that could mean "anonymous," instead of being a Shakespeare joke) - is the way it calls up memories of my childhood. I've been living in towns for a while now, and that wasn't something I ever really meant to do. But dorms became apartments led to more apartments, and it's been sidewalks and streetlights for what feels like a really long time. I've had such fun reading the celebratory way people in this fandom write about the north - and it was in my mind driving up, watching things get woodier and snowier, feeling kind of epic and kind of wonderful.

I've still got a fair amount of end-of-semester work/grading to tidy off, not to mention my yuletide (it exists, I think I understand it, now I just have to write words down except that writing words down is the hard part!) But it feels good to be back where I can see snowy hills out the window while I work.

for anghraine, ( five things I keep in mind while writing Edmund Pevensie )