Happy Earth Day

You're not going to get much else out of me today, because I plan to be outside (and not on the computer) as much as possible.

At least around here, it's a beautiful day. The sun is shining, it's warm, ten degrees above seasonal for April. The first leaves are coming out and the first weeds flowers are blooming. I rode my bike to work today without a jacket.

So I think today Frances and I will eat our dinner under the trees out back. Frances will watch the squirrels running around and try to make friends with them. I'll read a book, and make a plan for something we can do outdoors that is more earthy and less living-roomish. Then she'll play with C. They'll plan a carnival or a party of some sort, share their toys, play with one of C's budgies.

This past weekend , when the warmer-than-it-should-be weather started, I rode my bike down to the Don. The last piles of dirty snow had finally melted and the entire trail was accessible again. There were families out walking dogs, couples jogging, a few other people on bikes; despite the lack of leaves on the trees it was just like last summer. The bike made the wooden bridges rumble like tractors, and sped down the hills fast enough to make me worry about spinning out in puddles of fine gravel. There were no trilliums, sadly, but other green things were poking themselves up through the leaf litter. Whenever I could I watched the river--now placid, now running, now sluggish, now tumbling over boulders and logs down a slight incline, now thrown up by stones in a shallow bed into a white froth. On the last bridge before exiting the park I stopped and got off my bike just to watch the water running off into the distance. The trees were still bare, the banks barren. The sun had started setting and the twilight was deep. That something in me plugged in to the something outside, like stepping in to an old cathedral where large and important events once took place, or like catching a glimpse of face in a crowd belonging to someone you thought had long since died. Or maybe like seeing something holy, a reflection of that bit of god that lives in everything suddenly on the surface. "My god," I said out loud. "I missed you."

I don't think I can put into words how much she is like a real person to me.

Posted by Andrea at April 22, 2008 8:14 AM under The Green Family

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