It’s not often that I get to say that it’s a gorgeous morning here in State College. Just a week ago we got 2-3 inches of snow. Yesterday started off cold and gray and rainy. Today feels like the type of day I have been waiting for for weeks.
I’ve been sitting in the morning sun for the past two hours – maybe more. It’s not yet hot. I can hear at least a half-dozen different bird songs and calls: chickadees and jays, crows and grackles. Single strands of spider web connect the patio chairs to the railing. They glisten and wave in the sun. Off to the side, a fat bee falls asleep in a nook near a window sill. It’s the type of morning when one could appreciate the slow luxuries of good company – or at least the way the steam rises from the cup of coffee. I’ve been reading and writing… and when I pause, I gently chastise myself for not making plans to take advantage of this weather. Except I am doing that, but feel like I should be doing something more – like I should take greater advantage. I probably should have planned a hike, or bought some mulch… I need to get groceries and want to grill and go for a run or visit a city or be at the beach. I could really go for a beach day. I like the woods and I like hiking, but there’s a level of preparation and concentration required – mapping things out ahead of time, following the trail, paying attention to the turns, trying not to get too lost – that prevents me from getting lost in the way I like to get lost. I’m not up for that type of a challenge today.
When I first came outside to read, I sat for a moment doing nothing. I said in my head a favorite Vonnegut quote, “if this isn’t nice, what is?” I followed that by reminding myself to smile while cutting carrots which always brings a smile to my face. This, all of it, is both enough and not enough. I feel greedy to want more… more mornings like this, more days to laze or explore or write or squeeze it all in. I feel alive and attentive and want to be alive and attentive in lots of different places and lots of different ways.
I’ve had the travel bug for months and haven’t done anything about it. A while back I was saying I wanted to go out west for a bit (this past winter) and maybe Spain in the spring. Instead, I’ve gone to Otto’s on Fridays and hung at home the rest of my weekends. One of the poems I read, “Bob” by C.K. Williams begins, “If you put enough hours in bars, sooner or later you get to hear every imaginable kind of bullshit. / Every long-time loser has a history to convince you he isn’t living at the end of his own leash” I’ve put my fair share of hours in at bars and I’m never quite sure if I’m the listener or the yarn spinner of bullshit at the end of his own leash.
With the nice weather, there is a feeling of things shaking loose… but also one of absence – mostly of choice. In Memphis or Philly or Yardley, I could walk around and explore on a nice day. And in Philly/Bucks, I could get out of town and hike or go to the beach, or go hear a band. And that might be why I didn’t feel like hiking today. It’s always an option, and often one of the only options. There’s something about spending the first nice days of spring seeing other people enjoying the first nice days of spring – which doesn’t happen quite as much in the remote spaces of the woods.
I walked downtown to a bookstore and coffee shop. Lots of people were out. The parks were full of picnickers and campus was full of students enjoying the weather. Back at the house, I grilled up the first burger of the season and sat on the back deck with a beer – acknowledging it’s nice, but never quite sure if there’s more to all of this or what he means by “living at the end of his own leash”?