Watching the deliberate greening of the woods behind our backyard feels like having a front-row seat as a miracle unfolds in slow motion.
How it starts from the bottom and patiently works its way all the way up to the tops of the trees.
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Thursday after work my son and I rode over to the high school track together.
Checking the weather I mentioned to him the rains on the way.
He asked how long we would go if it started raining.
“I imagine the question will answer itself,” I said.
On Thursdays a youth fitness program meets at the track. A few adults break the kids into groups, from teenagers down to elementary schoolers, and run them through exercises and drills.
Was barely a lap in when it started raining.
The rain picked up speed quicker than me, and soon was coming down pretty good. No thunder or anything, just a hard, heavy shower.
I checked to see what the coaches would do with the kids. Figured I’d follow their lead. I assume they know more than me.
It was raining so hard, I fully expected them to call it … maybe take the kids inside the school if not cancel out of an abundance of caution.
But they didn’t.
They proceeded to line ‘em up and on-your-marks’d ‘em.
Made me smile while my nose dripped.
The rain kept up the whole time we were there, but the heavy part only lasted a few minutes.
For the remainder … it was just a quintessential Southwestern Pennsylvania spring shower.
I was glad for the kids … that they got to experience the gift of running in the rain.
The kid in me was grateful to be reminded, too.
By which I mean … the question answered itself.
___
Yesterday after work I went back to the track for some easy loops at the end of a long week.
My running shoes were still soaked from the night before.
It was pushing 7 p.m. on a Friday … and I was the only one there.
Only human, I mean.
The track sits below the school, so you walk down a hill to get to it.
On the grassy slope by the entrance, a robin was posted up … practicing her signature tune.
Robins are so common around here, sometimes I forget how beautifully they sing.
You catch one by herself, though, and God pulls up a chair.
Her crisp song cut the still air so clearly.
Every time I circled back to where she was practicing, I slowed down and gushed compliments.
It was like being in the front row of an empty amphitheater while the evening’s soprano was dry-running her arias.
If I’da had flowers, I’da laid ‘em at her feet.
All by herself singing a song she’s sung hundreds of times and singing it new for the first time again.
Things that got me through the week, in no particular order, and mostly in spite of myself ….
Dialing up an episode of 99% Invisible, which turned out to be Roman Mars’ recent appearance on another podcast — Dear Hank and John, whose John is John Green, who I can say without an ounce of irony nor hyperbole I super love, whose Anthropocene Reviewed podcast was among the many, many, little, golden things that got me through the Pandemic, literally and persistently whispering into my ears on my walks and slow jogs that there is still yet much in this world to fall in love with.
Discovering that John and his brother, Hank, have done like 370 episodes of Dear Hank and John, whose premise is answering reader’s questions with dubious advice, which, for me, is the equivalent of that recurring dream I have where I’m in a house I’ve been living in for some time, and I go downstairs, where I discover (or am reminded, I’m not sure which) that there are many additional, large, unused rooms in it, and I’m like, whoa, more rooms … awesome.
Roman Mars’ laugh, when he is coaxed into a giggle, which, I swear, is one of the best sounds in the world.
Noticing that hot coffee in the morning sometimes makes me sweat. Anyone else? Should I be concerned?
Making time in the mornings, before diving into the day’s work pile, to step outside into the driveway and listen to the birds. Noticing one I’d never heard before, whose song is three notes, the second and third lower than the one before. Grateful that she decided to sit in with the band and take a few choruses.
The sound of the wood pecker off to the left in the woods behind our house, going to town on what sounds like a perfect piece of dead tree (which, I swear, is one of the best sounds in the world), probably the woodpecker equivalent of discovering the all-you-can-eat-peel-and-eat shrimp station on the buffet.
Thinking of a friend whom I hadn’t corresponded with in a couple weeks, and taking a couple early Tuesday morning minutes to send a message in a bottle email, sharing something I thought he’d appreciate while confessing the week had the upper hand on me, and his reply, in essence, conveying, “I’m here for you.” The many lessons of the simple that.
How, for some reason, the meaty sound of Mr. Woodpecker reminding me of exactly how it felt to barrel a Wilson Comet rubber-coated baseball (worth the $2 at Dice’s Sporting Goods) with my 28” wooden Adirondack bat that one time we played the long field (home plate near the swing sets) on the asphalt on Areford Playground during my 9-year-old summer, which went for a ground-rule double, the closest I ever got to a home run that summer. To this day, nothing like finding the sweet spot.
Receiving a letter in the mail Tuesday from my friend, Jim. Deciding on the spot to wait until Saturday to open it to give me something to look forward to, which I plan to do right after this.
Getting to the track Tuesday night right when a high school meet was letting out, and about 20 minutes before the Tuesday night youth program convenes, allowing me some quiet moments of lugging myself around the loop. Emma making the two of us breaded pork chops for dinner that night, upon which we drained our bottle of Red Hot dry. Both events could not have been more perfectly timed.
Having new variations of my ongoing, recurring series of “unprepared” dreams, one of which involved what I think was a violent lobster that had gotten loose, and me grabbing ahold of it while it ‘bit’ (they don’t bite with their claws, I know, but ‘pinched’ doesn’t sound violent enough) me so hard and often my hands were pouring out blood, and (the next night) me wandering into a dream version of one of the newspapers I used to work for, and having one of the editors remind me of that evening’s shift (which I was not expecting or prepared for), and being unable to find the ‘second’ newsroom where my desk was, and also freaking out because I no longer remembered how to format stories or do layout. Grateful, I suppose, for the unambiguity of my dream life.
Trudging downstairs after getting outta bed every morning and finding Viktor (one of the cats who live in our house), sitting in the dark, ‘meditating’ (as I refer to it), patiently waiting until I sat down at my desk, so he could hop up for our morning conversations while shedding seemingly inexhaustible plumes of fur all over me and my desk, which I receive as my morning armor.
Giving Karry her hardest laugh of the week, when my son, who is on a mission to trade in his car for something, um, up-leveled, texts me his discovery that “the bank won’t finance cars more than 10 years old” … and me, waiting a beat before replying, “oh … we have something in common, then.” Being reminded that Karry’s laugh is the best sound in the world.
Sipping a single adult beverage with my wife and our oldest on an ‘almost there, not sure we’re gonna make it’ Thursday night while trying out a new-for-us pizza place. Spoiler alert: we made it.
Upon discovering “Dear Hank and John,” discovering that John Green is also a prolific You Tuber, and stumbling upon this, which pretty much sums up all of the above, and is worth four, glorious, minutes of your precious time. There is still so very much in the world worth falling in love with.
Letters for Maggie 