the bells

It's not a total surprise that I think I'll miss coming home to Kolz in Toledo -- the big apartment, the familiarity of the Midwest, and ability to take myself in a car to the grocery store all count in its favor. The Mud Hens, the Mexican food, added bonuses.

But I also have this thing about church bells. I loved the particular chime before the hour at York Minster, and I love being able to hear the bells from Riverside Church walking around our neighborhood in New York. My neighborhood landmark in Berlin is a big old church with a big, big old bell that rings at noon, six, and midnight.

From Kolz's apartment, you can hear the bells from (what we think is) an Episcopalian church that recently got a new steeple. Today at noon they played a hymn I remember from when I was little, which I liked then because it had a lot of aaa-aa-ahleeeluuu-ia's in it. You don't expect bells to play things you could also sing to. If memory serves, it was "Christ the Lord is Risen Today".

I don't know, though. It's not the "Holy Toledo" Toledo that I'll miss. Even though I just come in for a few weeks at a time, cook up a storm, rest, watch TV, hang out, and leave, it has been a nice place to do all that. And knowing that I won't come back here - won't come back at all until December - somehow just throws me off balance a bit.

But my head has cleared enough today to let me get some substantive work done on the Norway talk. Thank god.