Outside It Is Warm And Blue And April
Oh, darling, in the last 7 months what has been happening is life. Routine, seasons, wandering, pondering - life. That’s what I may say to my future self, when if at some time I look back at these posts and wondered what it was between September and April?
All I can say is that now, I am 28. I switch metros and navigate the city with my eyes closed. I have a particularly naughty class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and half the time have to hold in my laughter because I am the teacher, and not always their friend, but I, personally, am a bit more friend than teacher. And no, I certaintly did not whisper answers to my juniors while they filled out their multiple choice pop quiz last week.
The winter felt long, as it always does. I thought back a lot to Paris, and how there were so many hours. I was also unwell a few times the last number of months. One divine thing however has been the dry sauna and steam room at Metropolitan. Waking up at 6 in the dark, I’d convince myself out of bed every time to get a workout in because of how good that sauna feels after. It worked every time, and was worth it every time, too.
A handful of times I sat out on the balcony, in the dry cold, and wrote in my journal. The trees were so bare, and I daydreamed about a day like today.
I always feel a little silly when the day comes. As if mother nature stands and looks at me softly, lovingly, and if she could, she’d whisper, “My love, I always arrive, and I arrive on time, isn’t it so?” and I lean back, closing my eyes as I feel my face warm in the sun. I nod. I smile. I laugh to myself.
As it gets warmer, I have found myself thinking of all the beautiful places I have experienced Spring. In the winter I read the way Mary Oliver described a beautiful Spring day and somehow the transitions and momentum of time always feels like a bit of a miracle to me.
She had wrote,
“It is a very beautiful day, I look around and I think,
There cannot have ever been a Spring more beautiful than this, I could not know until now that flowers could be wild like this.
I did not know that the sky is the sea and the clouds are the souls of happy ships sunk long ago.
I did not know that the wind could be tender, like hands as they caress down my spine, like fingers through my hair.
The way the sun stays late talking with the moon as it rises, how soft and warm the air remains even while I sleep.
What did I know … until now?”
I sit here, and I can barely make out the people walking about below, and the building across the street, my favourite one, has a skirt of velvet green again.
The trees are so full, they almost need a haircut. The sky really is the perfect blue. An ocean above me. It’s clear. It’s April, it’s Spring. The daylight is becoming more, and the hours aren’t so long. What did I know? Until now?
