I'm talking to the shadows, one-o'clock to four*

I look up from my sun-hardened clay to glance around the hillside. Massaging my hand, careful to lightly pass over the forming blisters, I take in the sights. There, in front of me, is the tall grass, light green and desperate for breeze, as I am. A little further on, the town hidden in a dip, red roofs and white buildings and small ferocious cars. The silver spire of the church, a uniform symbol in this area, glints in the merciless sun. Still further, the mountains rise, the light green melting into deep shadows.

I watch the horse-and-cart trot down the road, I hear the students' laughter mix with the rapid low Romanian of the local diggers, and I am once again struck by the luck in my life. I am doing what I once only dreamed as a far-away dream. I am on an archaeological dig in another country, searching for the past and the watercolor-wet sketch of people long dead. I am in Transylvania, hearing Hungarian and seeing Romanian and eating fantastically well. I am rereading the dog-eared and ragged pages of my book just as I am living out the footstep-worn path of the characters and their trek through the region. I am so very lucky and it is wonderful.

All day today, I've been hit again and again by this realization. That I am here, and doing this, and I am going to make it count. It's been wonderfully centering, especially when I find myself getting frustrated over this trivial thing or that stupid comment or my own personal goals in contrast with the group.

For example: while I am an independent/I can do it myself type of person, I do like a certain level of structure when there are group projects and big things to be done. I want to know what I'm doing right or wrong so I can attain the former. And this dig does not have much structure or direction, which is generally okay because I've dug before and I know about square pits and straight walls and leveling and levels and layers--but most people haven't done any of this before. There's no direction, there's no workshop portion of 'here's how to hold a trowel' or 'here's how to fill out paperwork.' Granted, there wasn't much my first summer, either; it was purely an accident of a slow day and my pit partner being absent that led our dig director to teach me the proper way to hold a trowel, to dig, to level out, etc. But it makes having a certain level of uniformity very hard when general knowledge isn't taught. Like, my troweling form is so bad it's embarrassing, because of the hardness of the clay and lack of a properly sharp trowel edge, and if it's like that for someone who has dug for the past four seasons, I can imagine just how confusing and frustrating it is for my pit-mates.

Also, I've come up with another story idea! An archaeological murder mystery! Not particularly original, I know, but the bits and pieces are being sketched out, like:

• murder by trowel--but on a dig like back home, where there are uniform trowels, what acts as the key is the amount of wear/tear and sharpness/dullness of the blade (?)
• someone came up with the idea of the body being found under the plastic tarps we cover our pits up with at the end of the day
• ~controversial~ discovery in a pit
• argument at night, over controversial discovery

Something like that, maybe. I'd have to do more research, but it could be really fun!

*Black Coffee, Ella Fitzgerald. Sad and soppy, but I was in the mood for jazz.