Underwater.

Remember when you were little and first tried to reach the bottom of the pool, fighting the buoyancy of your own body and above all that mad desire to suck in air? In the countryside, without a television or a newspaper subscription, suddenly losing your internet connection can feel similar. Amazing how I can even imagine associating computer time to something as vital as breathing, but there you go. You get used to access, and hurry-it-up, both of which I have lacked for the past few days. This, while such interesting little moments were happening, between the (tidal) waves of holiday rush (visits, preparations for visits, more visits, trimming the tree, making wreaths, making merry). I guess the lead up to Christmas doesn't differ that much whether I live in Amsterdam, Washington, D.C., or the boonies of France. (It isn't really the boonies here, but it can feel like it when one is sans internet connection.)

I thought of you, dear reader, when I was driving past broad swathes of grapevines and noticing they'd finally shifted from pure autumn gold to the reddish brown, leafless haze of winter. But at that very same instant--I swear on a stack of Bibles taller than me--the title song of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! musical came on the radio:

...Flowers in the prairie where the june bugs zoom,
Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope.
Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain...

Enough to send a girl into some rather odd daydreams.