Jan 4 1983

Well, we’ve made it into the new year. The days pass so quickly when I look into my journal and see that it has been more than a week since I have written. But day by day I feel that time is moving too slowly. It’s probably because I’m anxious to be home. Not in a negative sense. I don’t want to be home to be away from St. Vincent. It’s because I miss my family and the states so much. But that feeling is changing somewhat. A month or so ago it was an emotional and intellectual yearning for home. Its now sublimated into more of a gut level, almost internalized feeling of need Almost a hunger...I wonder if I’ll just have the feeling soon, without knowing why…

Work begins for me tomorrow. I’m quite anxious. The music next door isn’t helping that much either. Seems they chose the worst time to be noisy. I’ve got a feeling that we’re going to confront those folks. ‘We’ meaning the community of Edinboro. It would be useless for just me to complain. I think there are others here that are pretty fed up with having to deal with these guys. I hope we can work out a compromise. At least so that weeknites are relatively quiet. I hardly expect them to give up their business.

We had our first ‘visitors’ today. Their names were Bernadette and Michelle. They are a couple of young girls that have ‘taken’ to Debbie. They asked if they could come over and we said yes. (It’s nice to have some control). They gave use some help with the garden but mostly just hung around an read magazines. It was quite nice and they were well behaved. Hope they don’t bring a bunch of their friends. Two is enough…

Yes the garden has begun. Actually it will be quite a lengthy project. The soil is quite rocky and it will need much cultivation before it is ready to receive seeds. We have apackage waiting for us at the P.O. Presumably from Debs mom. Supposed to be seeds. Looks like we’re going to get some local interest going in it. Great! We could use the help and always need a secondary project.

The weather seems to be improving. WE had rain every day since x-mas eve. Sometimes all day. Soon though, it will be so dry that we’ll wish it were raining again. It’ll be interesting to see the seasons change here. I don’t look forward to increasing temperatures. The temps have been a near perfect 80º. Love it.