November 11th
Dear Mom,
I can remember reading books set in Arkansas. They were usually old westerns if I remember right, and it's been refreshing to see a new angle of the beautiful country here.
Arkansas has some of the most beautiful hills I've ever seen. They're not quite as big and majestic as the Rockies, but the Ozarks are nothing to be ashamed of. They're bluer than the Rockies, or maybe that was the almost winter light shining over them.
I can see why there's so many novels about girls who run away from bad situations and find themselves in small mountain towns. There's something peaceful about the smoke rising from chimney's around town, mixing with the early morning fog that lies along the ridges, accentuating the few beams of sunshine that make it through.
These mountains have a ghostly beauty, even after the fog has lifted and they're revealed to be the tree covered craggy rocks that they are.
Yesterday I spent several hours at ThornCrown Chapel. It was built in 1980 and is an awesomely beautiful structure. All bare wood and glass. The floor is concrete, I think, but patterned.
I accidentally showed up just as a wedding was getting underway, so I slipped into a back row and stayed for the service.
Somehow it's only just occurred to me that you won't be at my wedding. That the scrapbook you put together against my will when I was nineteen is all of you I'll have that day.
Why is it that I can think I finally believe you're gone. Finally accept all the things you'll be missing from, only to discover new things?
You aren't even here to kick Neil for never contacting me, or to kick me for leaving him without an explanation other than the note.
The wedding was beautiful. Everything a mountain wedding should be, including an open bar that served moonshine.
I came back to the campground long after the moon had risen in the sky, the stars shining so brightly in the chill mountain air, and I sat on my step and shivered while I processed all over again the pain that is losing you.
I still feel lost so often. Lost in the knowledge of everything you were supposed to be here for. But Althea says that's part of grieving and that I shouldn't fight it. Acknowledge the grief.
So I did. And my naturally dramatic heart is a little happy that I watered the forest ground with my tears before bundling myself away to bed.
Today something amazing happened to me. I suppose it can't be actually amazing if it happens to two people a day on average, but I'm still surprised it happened to me.
I was reading about local parks and attractions and I found the site for the Crater of Diamonds State Park.
I immediately bought a ticket to go visit today and when I arrived I found out I was able to rent diamond digging equipment from the shop.
It was so much fun. There are a few different ways to search for diamonds, and since it hasn't rained for over a week I started out with the dry sifting. I sat in the dirt, sifting handfuls through my mesh for a little over an hour before I noticed several boys at the wet sifting station.
I wasn't having any luck with my dry sifting, so I wandered over to them. They were probably eight or nine and reminded me strongly of Hank.
No sooner did I reach them than one of them splashed me accidentally, missing his friend by a good two feet.
I stopped dead in my tracks, laughing at the look on his face till he realized I wasn't mad and laughed with me. Then he offered to show me how to wet sift.
Apparently him and his dad come here several times a year because you can find other stones here than diamonds. Even amethysts and garnets. He said his dad is a rock hound so he's pretty much left to his own devices for several hours a day.
I could tell he's definitely spent some time around here. He poured a good bit of dirt into a steel mesh box and then lowered it in the water, moving it side to side quickly, then turned it in his hands and repeated the movement.
After a few minutes he let it rest at his fingertips and dropped it gently about a half inch to settle the heavier minerals.
After he showed me, he instructed me to do it for at least a minute. So I rocked back and forth, and then settled, alternating what he'd shown me and then he told me to flip the mesh box quickly onto the table top so what was at the bottom would show first.
I botched it the first time. I sloshed it all over myself and he just shook his head with disgust.
I couldn't stop laughing at him, but he didn't seem to mind. He just filled the mesh again and gave me my orders.
The third or fourth time I finally got the flip exactly right, and there was a white circle of minerals in my square of dirt. I sifted into it a bit, and there was a diamond.
It's not huge, but that's not important. What's important is that I found a diamond, and William, (he finally introduced himself) was very proud of me.
Now my arms and back are so sore, and I've never been more excited over a day's work in my life.
I have a little uncut diamond that will probably be much prettier if I get it cut. But I'm not sure I want to. We all live our lives a little raw, don't we? Why shouldn't we enjoy our rocks a little raw too?
My diamond has gone in a little bag and then into the shoebox with almost everything else that's come to mean something to me on this journey.
I can't help imagining you dancing in the mud and kicking a little bit of it in William's direction when we found the diamond. In my mind's eye you're laughing, and your hair is lit by the sun, and for a moment it would feel like we have forever.
I love you,
Bo.
