Run Through By Eyes of Blue

Under a February sky of Carolina blue, I felt my heart stop and I nearly tripped and fell down the ramp in front of me. The sun was playing tag with clouds like meringue, and it felt so good. My surprise was complete, total, and irrevocable.

I’m sorry, Mr. Eliot, April may have been the cruelest month for you, but around here February is the sadist. The blood is running sluggish and feels tired. The cold and damp has been hanging around for too long. Every day feels like waking up from a restless nap, dizzy and sick feeling, with a head full of molasses.

Even the sky gets in on the act. It hangs. It lowers. It’s a swollen belly the color of a dirty nickel. Or maybe a bucket of fetid dishwater. The grayness rubs off on me turning my skin into a peculiar shade of nothing. The skin itself is usually dry and scratchy; sometimes I feel like I’m molting. Crabby enough to be an angry crustacean.

It’s a little strange because I am not a “sun” person. I like beaches and being outdoors but it has never been a priority to get a tan. My honeymoon was in the Bahamas, an entire week, and I found that by the end of the seven days of paradise, I felt like I had been poleaxed from the heat and the light and not being in the shade enough. Copious amounts of ‘Bahama Mamas’ probably didn’t help either. Sitting in a lounge chair watching people jet-skiing through Nassau Harbor or swimming up to the bar in the pool, bodies a-glisten with tanning lotion, that was exhausting for me in the full bore glare of the sun.

Summer days around here swiftly devolve into hazy buckets of thick, smoggy air, the humidity fit to turn any article of clothing into a damp sponge. The car is always hot, the air is always hot and fifteen minutes of trying to get anything done outdoors just makes you want to sit down under a tree with a cold beer in hand. Still, I never feel like I want to crawl into a hole and sleep for months.

Spring, fall and early winter are my favorite times of year. I like cloudy days when the clouds are rolling, scudding along under pressure of wind. I am comforted by a cool taste in the air like the possibility of rain. Rain itself I don’t mind in small amounts. A cool spring rain or that supercharged smell of fat drops in a summer thunderstorm are among my favorite seasonal experiences. That sort of thing lifts me up, makes me feel the possibilities of life running through my veins.

Fall days with a slight nip and mottled sunlight: I wish I could bottle them, paint them, write a good song about them. They make me feel alive and invigorated. Watching geese migrate or picking apples with the smell of frost in my nostrils, and I am blessed. As a testament to my dorkiness as a boy, I liked in some small measure that school had started by the fall. Perhaps it was the ritual of it, the seasonal marker. There was a newfound vigor in the body that came from cooler temperatures and shaking off the stifling effects of sweltering weeks. Not for nothing are they called “dog days”. Dog tired and panting from the heat.

I have also done some of my best work in early winter. The reasons are still a mystery to me. Shorter days and colder temperatures seem counter intuitive to higher productivity. Maybe it is the momentum picked up from the invigoration of fall, senses sharpened and on a roll. Being forced back inside I am sure has an influence; it is difficult to goof off outside playing Frisbee when the sun has gone down by dinnertime. Yeah, I know, they make glow-in-the-dark Frisbees, but the first time you do a faceplant after tripping over a hose, you get a big disincentive to risk life and limb running around in the backyard.

Wintertime at college was when I always racked up my highest GPA’s, too. Of course, I was up in the mountains of Virginia, and it was cold as the proverbial welldigger’s butthole most of the time. Except for sledding down hills on lunch trays stolen from the cafeterias, and weekend football, not a whole lot of reason for me to be outside. Maybe the weather promoted more of a “monastery” approach to life. Another advantage to winter in the mountains was the greater cold. That meant snow was more likely, not so much sleet or rain. Snow is a lot more fun than the gray funk I see a lot around here in February.

Gray funk. The best description I can think of for a February in Baltimore. Not cold enough for a lot of snow, not warm enough to really spend a lot of time outdoors. Especially here near the water, where it can get really damp. The sort of damp that seeps through the clothes and settles in the bones, sapping the energy and draining the spirit. Even like now, when we haven’t had that much snow and ice all winter, it’s still grey. Like a room full of nothing.

Except for today. Today it was warming up like you could smell Spring sitting on the back of the stove, simmering flowers. The soil was waking up and I had a nose full of minerals and a head full of breezes. My girl and I and the wife could not resist the call of the satyrs this un-winter day. Too much time in the house, too much gray painting the walls and the inside of our eyelids, so we piled into the car in search of rejuvenation. Soon, we were at the big playground where she went for “field trips”. Oh, what a lovely day! The scent in the air, the sound of kids playing happily on the slides and monkey bars, a nice breeze tickling my ears and neck. First time in weeks I felt some serious life in the limbs.

I stepped out of the car, helped Wee Lass out of her seat. She was real excited about playtime and being out of the house. We skipped a little going down the ramp, and she giggled to make me turn to mush. Her hair was in a ponytail, streaming in the wind, that honey-gold banner of the Princess trailing out behind.

At the bottom of the ramp, she stopped and turned and looked at me with those eyes the color of heaven. I, the Captain of Her Highness’ Guards, clutched my chest and swore that while I drew breath, she would never come to harm. The Princess smiled sweetly, knowing full well the glory of her position.

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THE CHEST THUMPING CONTINUES: Please don't forget the HeBlogs/SheBlogs contest forget sponsored by Petra over at The Wise (*Young*) Mommy. Today's entries are from IB at Idiot’s Stew and Joe from Crotchety Old Man Yells At Cars, two fine examples of the male mind displayed in all its glory. The posts go up at 8:00. Check them out, it will get your day off to a roaring start!