Heat Wave
Friday afternoon, 80 degrees
Every spring seems to bring the same amazing revalation, which is each year heightened by how cold and long and grey the winter felt, that sun and heat are good and great and have been missed. I do enjoy the cold, the dreary, the damp. The colder climate than DC was a sizeable fraction of my decision to go to school in Boston. Cozy, snowy, winter streets. Sudden November showers, running inside and throwing my jeans over the radiator while the scent and sound still splash the open window.
But the verdant warmth is very good. The ice runs to meltwater, and the gaiety flows.
I walked through Centennial quad yesterday and watched a huddle hanging hamocks between two trees. They were stacked one hamock above another, all the way up to four high.
It's tempting to claim control, to pretend my mind is protected from exogenous driftings. I am singular and beyond deception, even from the seasons. Moreover, my conclusions are my own. My past feelings were logically computed from only those internal factors I care about, and the daytime low is not one of those factors. To paraphrase Liebniz: "calculavi".
So I take my lunch outside, in the grass of the park across the street from the apartment.
I don't actually eat lunch outside by the park benches. I microwave an everything bagel hardened in neglect on my kitchen counter. The microwaving softens it enough to cleave with a serated knife, and it is finished with the cream cheese. The bread's still hard though, so the incisors struggle to chip pieces off. The molars take up the work easily. I think about how I don't like everything bagels.
Of course I'm still happy. This life is good too. How could it not be, while the sun shining?