5-17-08 "Awesome!"

Riding bikes in the park on a gorgeous, blue-sky Saturday, we rest for a minute beside a sun-dappled lake speckled with swans and ducks.

"Sometimes, on days like this," I say, watching a rust and white colored dog named Rufus splash around scaring the ducks, "I love everybody so much I can't stand it."

"Well, on a day like this," Katie replies, "everyone has good intentions. Even the guy buying coke thinks to himself, 'Hey, it's a beautiful day, I'm gonna see my friend Dave and buy some coke. Awesome!'"

4-17-08 Yeah, me too, kid.

Listening on my iPod to Alan Watts talking about Zen on the way home from the grocery store after work, walking through the glorious spring day, trees budding, flowers blooming, blue sky above, moon rising straight down St. Marks, and all's right with the world. He says, "...and so the present moment suddenly expands, and it contains the whole time, all past, all present, all time. You never have to hold on to it."

I walk by the row of houses, and a little boy stands behind a steel gate, solemnly blowing bubbles between the bars and watching them sail out into the sunshine, sparkling, iridescent and lovely, until they dissolve into nothing in the air.

4-9-08 Shoes

Spring's here, and you can tell because girls are starting to wear their cute shoes again. Red and pink painted toes peek out from open-toed heels like tulip buds pushing out of the ground, flats and ballet style shoes in metallics flash across sidewalks and up stairs; thick, clunky boots retreat to the back of the closet and the sandals begin their warm-up stretches after the long winter.

Speaking of shoes, I tend to be pretty hard on mine, and, after only a month or so of wear, the shoelaces on my new work shoes needed replacing. Nothing makes me feel so much like an adult and a little kid at the same time as buying new shoelaces: the tidy loops tightly wound in their paper wrapping, threading the new shoelace (never exactly the same color black as the previous shoelace) through the eyes on the blind, gaping shoe, tying the shoe extra tight again without fear of breaking the old, worn shoelace.

4-2-08 Gross Out Post Warning - Sinuses

After enduring an inexplicable stuffed up nose for the past 2 weeks, today during breakfast, for some equally inexplicable reason, my entire sinus cavity abruptly liquified and drained. I imagine the flooding of the Nile River Valley might have felt like this, if the Nile River Valley were a nose that suddenly began to gush a thick, clear mucus over its morning eggs and toast.

The upshot of this rather disturbing event was my sudden increased capacity to smell the newly arriving spring. The heady, floral perfume of the woman walking by on the subway, the acrid smog from the bus idling in the intersection, the loitering smoke of the cigarettes burning in the vestibules of the buildings I pass, that man's coffee he frantically sips as he hurries along to work, everything opened up and my world went from black and white to technicolor, 360-degree, smell-o-vision.

4-1-08 Not an April Fool's Joke

Across the street from my work, clearly visible from a window in the board room, is a tree, just beginning to bloom. The delicate green buds, glowing in the grey of a cloudy day, must have been growing for the past week, and yet, all of a sudden, there they are, just like magic. It's supposed to be 65 degrees or something ridiculous today, and there is no stopping the world from turning.

Spring comes, winter ends, and darkness, without our really noticing, as busy as we are, suddenly gives way to light, and everything changes.