Soaking in It

I wrap myself in an orange rain shell and pull on rain pants against the downpour.  A yellow ducky umbrella in my hand and a vinyl messenger bag at my side, I head out the door and slog the half mile to the express bus.  I say a prayer of thanks to Gore Tex, God of Intrinsic Dryness for the coat and shoes as I walk along, vaulting racing rivulets, fording impromptu creeks and giant puddles and dodging the spray from cars that can't so deftly jump over these omnipresent collections of water.

It has been but a week since the last deluge, and now the rain has returned with a Noachian vengence.  Every bit of ground is soaked, every roof and building and surface is saturated. The rivers and streams are still running high from the last round and there is simply no place for more water to go.  Nature is reminding us that this place where we live was and still is a swamp with rocks and a fickle ocean and sky.  Even the harbor holds the rivers back until the turning tide gives a reprieve, but the Nor'Easter's storm surge will back things up again in a few hours. 

Despite a day spent dodging downpours, sidestepping staircase waterfalls, and trying to find places to sit or stand inside where I won't get dripped on, some part of me actually enjoys this.  Revels in it.  Wallows in the everpresent wetness from within my orange shell.  Such is my nature and my life-long love affair with the water.  If it weren't for the sewer overflows and the notorious currents I'd be out there, in my wetsuit, swimming in the more languid floody places in the river.  I would be in the place where the water is everywhere, soaking in it.

Unbroken Journeys

Give me an open road
A long pathway with no lights to stop me
No intersections to disturb my thoughts
With fields and trees, houses and ponds
Give me an open road

Find me an open river
A long stretch of unbroken water flowing my way
No noisy motors to disturb my peace
With winding ways and birds of song
Find me an open river

Air of Springtime

I can smell your perfume,
The scent of a fresh cup of coffee
And the burnt odor of cigarette from around the corner

Perhaps you worked out this morning
But didn't shower just yet?
And that subway station really reeks of last week's rain

The grass grows greener on the other side of the block
And soon the trees and bulbs will bloom
And they too will be smelled before they will be seen

Karma Laundering

I'm a bad person.  I don't give money to panhandlers.  Why?  Because it never seems like it is really an act of charity. The act of sparing change is carefully designed to be self serving.

It isn't like I don't sympathize with the problems of homeless and out of work people.  I give food to food pantries and donate to shelter programs and programs that help people get on their feet.  I just find panhandling to be nothing more than a distastefully humiliating bit of drama whereby the mendicant puts on a good self-debasing story so that I will feel good giving up money. Or just sits there in a disheveled pile and shakes a cup of nickels rhythmically. For the real pro, the signs and costumes are part of the game, as is buying a clean soul without so much as making eye contact with the downtrodden.

I don't really care what the money is really spent on, even if it is drugs or cigs.  I do wonder why somebody who can keep an appearance schedule with more regularity than I show at my job can't just get a more comfortable means of support. (When I worked at a hospital, I used to give the hospital's job openings listing to the local panhandlers - two of them ended up working in the cafeteria during a hard winter).  I also wonder what happens to all the people with several children and illnesses and other issues who can't show up every day and tell us a new story of the week to make us feel like strong benefactors for a few coins. How do they get what they need?

Panhandling is as old as civilization.  So is the art of begging through solid presentation skills and the concept of getting special soul points for buying into it.  I don't need to launder my karma like that.

Write of Spring

Several warm days in a row, but I've been laid low with a belly bug. Somehow, being more comfortable on a bike than sitting down, while not being able to eat much, isn't a sustainable situation.

Yesterday afternoon, I still managed to pull my little red folding bike from the garage and take it off on an adventure to meet a friend. Leaving my jacket at home, I rode out into the intensely warm sunlight of the final winter day, with no leaves to filter it into cooling shade. I pulled a brightly-colored kimono top from my bag of summer clothes in the attic, and it fluttered around me as I rolled along like newly inflated butterfly wings, the volume of the material enhanced by the over-large size. All around me, the human world had come outside into the warm sun, mostly in pale legs and shorts, white arms sticking out from t-shirts, pale bellies beached on lawn chairs like sea lions sunning.

I carried my bike into the dark, damp, subway station, descending through three escalator rides down to the platform. A quick four stops later I emerged into the warm and unfiltered light to meet a friend in town for only this week. We headed to dinner at an Ethiopian place down the street. As we walked into the sun-filled restaurant, we were barreled by the scent of cardamom and coriander, with a hint of cinnamon. I felt like eating for the first time in days.

After dinner and a pint at a local bar, we went our separate ways - me on my bike to meet my son, he off to his hotel to go through his presentation for the next day's conference. As evening approached, the air failed to chill like March would expect it to, and I gently fluttered along jacket-free to my next important rendezvous.