Onward, March

Dear Maria,

Greetings!  Yes, finally dragged into a better mood a la spring springing. Doesn’t speak well of my attempt at a zen-like repose, but February was grinding my last nerve. And a 29^th day to boot. This morning I was raking out back and the tea olive were sweet and Max strutted around the inside perimeter and the bluebirds appeared to be feeding a new hatch—all good.

By the time I went to get the mail in the afternoon, the first green leaf on the Drake elm had popped out, and so the rhythm of plants and flowers and trees is humming right along.  The sun is on the move, the morning walk is now back to just after 7, and it’s 80 degrees this afternoon.

I guess I might say something about stuff in the news, but why ruin a fine day. Or any day for that matter. Today is one great, magnificent mute button.

Truly, not much to report. Real estate activity has jumped the past month here in the neighborhood—for sale signs sprouting, and a new family has moved in next door. Max and the malamute Bandit have agreed to an early truce, but the pug Misty or whatever has decided, just like the dachshund on the other side, it’s WWIII. Max was infuriated—fur up from tailbone to neck, teeth gnashing on a fence board, snarling. On his last nerve.

Thanks for the recommendation on the Saint-Exupery bio. I am around 50 pages in, even though I promised myself not to start it until I finished some of the other books in the stack. Still working through the pharaohs, and Piketty, and Kierkegaard’s journals—I know, I know—and I found two other books started that were under some other stuff and, well, fortunately no papers or presentations due on any of them. Ever.

There is one story that has tugged on me for a bit—you may have seen it. The one where the 10-year-old girl was killed when she pushed two younger girls out the way of a moving vehicle. No greater love, indeed, but I think we think more often of soldiers and teachers, not children, reacting in that way.

Reflexive? Perhaps. But she made the sacrifice. Begs the question of would I, would any of us. Maybe the greater question—if there were time for choosing—is there anyone we wouldn’t push out of the way? The only answer can be no, there isn’t.

I can only guess at how those parents—all of them—think of life and love and the future now.

Here, we renew. At some point, perhaps, I will get the hang of doing so daily.

Hope you get outdoors this weekend.

Yours, srk