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I'm back in Portland. I've been back for almost 10 hours now, but I've been too exhausted to write.

As soon as I got back from my vacation from responsibility, I was flung straight back into all of the frivolous details of living. I learned that my roommate's dad cut off his financial assistance, so he's going back home in 30 days and I need to find somebody new to take the other bedroom. We went over to the housing offce to sign the papers, after which I quickly spread some roommate wanted posters all over campus.

All this happened before 4:30. I got home at 3.

Until then, my mind was still atop steep rolling hills covered in golden grasses that make you feel like you're on top of the world.

And the world is as simple as the curve of the hill, extended like a sine wave that loops back on itself.

And the curves are the curves of a woman.

And the earth is the mother of creation.

And some hidden force has planted the seed that brought about all of these golden hills, scattered old, proud trees, and skies the color of hope.

Skies that fill you with joy as they proclaim your insignifance.

Within them, a single hawk.

Floating.

Hovering.

Waiting for the next meal.

And somehow, the hawk knows all of this about the earth and the hills and the sky, and insignificance.

But the hawk does not care.

Because, to the hawk, there isn't anything more important than finding the next meal.

This was the best moment of my vacation, if not my entire life. The reason is that the hill I was sitting on was behind a house that has been in my family for 50 years. I had never climbed it before, but I could tell as soon as I got up there that my father had felt the warm breaze over those hilltops countless times before I was ever born. I could almost hear him as a boy shouting to my uncle, throwing a baseball across the smooth tip of the earth mound.

And I could see the bay, and downtown Martinez, where my great grandfather came to when he moved to this country.

And my grandfather, 90 years old now and still in good health; he is a beakon of hope more vibrant than the sky above.