Soon summer will bloom and bustle. Saturday solitude will surrender, sidling off to the margins and memories. Gardens will germinate, and orchard will fruit. Family and friends will arrive. Lake activities will eclipse inland adventures, dogs will swim and romp, and loving laughter will conjoin a million new memories.
But today it’s still spring, and just barely spring, at that. Warm and muggy one minute, nippy and chilling the next. Time ticks toward sunnier days ahead, but slowly. Meditative minutes drift into quarter hours, half hours, as a robin pulls earthworms from the newly tilled vegetable garden.
I appreciate the pause.
A distant train whistle — amplified by overcast or wind or maybe something else — sounds at crossings as it trundles north-to-south. The intermittent drizzle resumes as a rabbit zigzags across the lawn where we will play bocce, croquet, and volleyball within a month or so. A crow takes full advantage of the acoustic conditions, competing with itself for attention. And I familiarize myself with the mental massage of nuage, sky roiling like turbulent froth of a river swallowing and regurgitating itself below a waterfall.
Tomorrow will be Easter. Soon thereafter, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Summer Solstice. By then spring will be but a vanishing wake behind a boat. Saturday solitude will become little more than nostalgia, a polished memory unforgotten but fading.
Nevertheless, from time to time, I will summon the soothing souvenir. I will unwrap it tenderly, gaze upon it, project myself back to the afternoon I waited for buds to burst, contemplated the choreography of squirrels, and harmonized the cacophony of Canada geese migrating north. Saturday solitude will become an analgesic oasis into which I’ll escape. To catch my breath. To distill my thoughts. And to remember why.
What do you think?