The Essence of Spring
The Scratchpad №67
In the short days of the Winter months, you must devise a plan to combat the “inactivity” of the season. Why? Because you simply dip into a lower fuel reserve, your interest in “personal growth” shrinks and a reduced intensity in sunlight causes a fall in vitamin D levels.
For instance, I spent three months trying to do a single workout this past chill and all I got were 91 false starts. The writing room gets a little smaller which drives you to desperate, loopy systems to spark productivity. This time around, I re-arranged the desk to the north side of the room and started using an air-diffuser loaded with basil essential oil. With a natural 30% decrease in metabolic activity, the appetite dwindles and wrestles you into considering the breatharian lifestyle — a truly depressing thought if you are a man of food. The urge to take on bear behavior and close my eyes for the next 100 days is heightened.
About eight Winter’s ago, I realized the priority is to hang around long enough until the ability to create another mood is available. This year, during December, January, February and most of March, my main job was to simply find a way to be able to read, write, walk and feed the family again the next day.
Then a sense of a totally different reality was draped over my skull when the sun was out until 7:13 P.M on that day during the last week of March. Saying that “Spring has sprung” is too cute and incomplete to describe the feeling. This was a chance to overhaul my perceptions that have been grayed over the last few months.
What follows is a non-direct approach to my observations of the first day of Spring.
I
“I retired Winter with four benadryl, one Allegra, a Pyrex cup of chamomile tea and an 11 hour nap. I had no choice in the matter since the histamines dominated my face as a response to the forthcoming season. You wake up to the first day of Spring and it feels like a senior citizen falling in love again. The soft glow of light splits my reading room in two and I’m compelled to roll my chair into the warmth. I’m glad to be right here and nowhere else.”
II
“Lunchtime. To break the fast at noon a vintage meal is in order. I push a wooden soup spoon into a zip-lock bag of penne pasta soaked in Marinara and pour a heaping scoop into a burrito size tortilla. You always fold the sides in first to prevent a blow-out. My grandpa-in law ate these for lunch during his woodworking years and now approaching eighty, he’s still fixing things. On the front porch with my Italian burrito, I was suddenly stuck between the past and the future when a shirtless 50 something year-old man zig-zagged down my street under the Spring sun in an aqua beach-cruiser. His pink chest was carpeted with fur and looked as if someone had poured an ashtray all over it. The aviators and fanny pack at the hip made me smile and I finally experienced what the Danes call Hygge.”
III
“All day the shadows of everything were darker and lasted longer. Then dusk came and drained away the blaze in the sky. Under the tall skinny palm trees I sit with the cool stillness of the Spring night and the demons of delusions are shattered.”
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