Home and Not-Home

This year's Mythmoot was a bit strange for me.   Partly, this has to do with various crises in the background at home and at work, the worries I couldn't leave behind.  And I'm very acutely aware that I haven't been doing any sort of academic writing in the last few years, consistent with a feeling (or a fear) that I have nothing to say.  Then again, the "homeward bound" theme, though certainly 100% appropriate as we returned to the National Conference Center, didn't seem to prompt truly compelling topics, even among those who have plenty to say.  And of course there was the constant undercurrent of an insider's recent ouster; a reminder that this is no longer the scrappy up-and-comer defying the odds.  Even worse, we learned over the weekend that we would not be able to see Verlyn, as she was convalescing. 

However, the bacon was plentiful, and the company was good, and I got to spend some time with SGGK.  

The "Dream Team" of Tom, Joe, and Alan were again victorious in the pub quiz -- pretty much guaranteed when two-thirds of the questions were on Tolkien! -- so our household will be enriched in due course by a book or two purchased with an Amazon gift card.    

I got to chat a while with Brenton's wife Chrissie, who had gotten lost in the maze of corridors, and with Tara, who had found her way easily (doubtless drawing on deeply embedded memories of Mythmoots past).   

In the course of a hazy and humid stroll around the grounds, I saw a deer, a cardinal, and a bright blue bird of some kind (but not a bluejay). 

Abrams, who outbid me on An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism (ed. by Lewis E. Nicholson), very generously gave it to me and (alas!) refused compensation.  If I ever part with the book, he gets first dibs.  On the way home, Tom had me read the first paragraph of each essay but Tolkien's aloud to him while he was driving; whether for this reason or another, a Great Drowsiness came upon him and I soon found myself in the driver's seat for the final stage of the journey.

I was not driving when I took this picture