The Pond
The pond that winter stilled with dark and moody ice now glistens under the crystal-blue vernal sky. The almost-hot spring sun and the cool spring breeze combine to make this day as perfect as any spring day. The silence that was once dead in the snow has disappeared and given way to the loud, incessant chittering uncountable tree frogs invisible and hiding in the moat of trees surrounding the pond.
Sitting on a bench near the pond’s edge, I watch a mother duck and her chicks gliding effortlessly across the clear still water, wakes of ripples fanning out behind them and glittering in the nascent spring sunshine.
But the ducks are not the only sailors on the pond today – I can see the reflections of cottony clouds swiftly crossing the pond’s surface like bright shadows that silently cross and intersect the paths of the gliding ducks. Silently and peacefully sharing the pond, the clouds and ducks add to the beauty and the ambiance of this perfectly painted spring day.
I have waited a long time for this… for this day… for spring… for a warm sun and a spring breeze. I have waited so long to see and hear the life returning to the brown and brittle death that we call winter.
It’s not that I hate winter. I really can’t think of much I hate other than the inequalities of this world… I hate to think that with all the wealth and all the money that exists in our world millions of children go hungry, and millions more are starving.
I hate to think that hospitals and nursing homes are filled with those who are sick, in pain, or dying. I hate to think there are people in this world with me who have tens of billions of dollars and choose to look away from the suffering, the hungry, the needy, the afflicted, the hurting – and turn their attention instead to their insatiable quest for more wealth – more things – and more power. I don’t understand unbridled greed.
So I guess I do hate some things. But I don’t hate anyone. And I don’t hate winter – it has its place.
I’ve waited so long for this first perfect spring day and I’m glad. The waiting gave it more meaning like a thunderstorm gives meaning to a starry warm summer evening – or night gives meaning to the day – or being alone gives meaning to friendship, and the cold gives meaning to warmth, and the sadness gives meaning to being happy. Learning to do without makes it easier to appreciate making do with the things you have. Learning to love what you have without yearning and wanting for more is, I think, the secret to being happy. None of us will ever get everything we want until what we have is all we want.
This beautiful spring day is the perfect day for musing. And there are so many muses and so many feelings. The magical warmth of the newborn spring sun makes me feel dreamy and pleasantly disconnected.
The bugs. The bugs are back. That’s not such a bad thing… if they stay outside where they belong. Or do they belong outside? We build our homes on theirs and then we chase them away with poisons when they dare reclaim their turf. I watch them scurry around at my feet and buzz through the air oblivious to me. They don’t know I exist, and I think they don’t care. They are like little pre-programmed biological computers – amazing things for their size. They are programmed by nature to find food and reproduce. Once they’ve assured the survival of the species, they die. How eloquent.
Death: How can one think about death on such a bright spring day as this? I guess I can because I am. I am trying – like many other people – to make sense of death. Death becomes the muse and the musing. I wonder where I was 200 years ago. The world didn’t miss me and I didn’t miss the world. And I didn’t miss being alive. Musing to reincarnation. I’ve often thought of myself walking down some wet cobblestone London street, lighted by gaslights on posts. The cobblestones shimmer in the pale light – my shoes click as I walk. There’s a chill in the foggy air. Newsboys chanting “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!”
The ducks quacking and the tree frogs chittering bring me back to awareness of this splendid spring day which surrounds me and enthralls me. The heavenly soft breeze and the little world of the pond and its moat of trees make me glad to be alive. And even more glad that I took the time to import the memory of this first beautifully warm day of spring into my time machine of memories.
On some cold, icy, forbiddingly fierce, and wicked winter day, my time machine will serve me well. It will take me back to this pond and the quacking of the ducks and the chittering of the tree frogs that hide in the trees.
My built-in time machine of memories will whisk me back to this splendid memory of a perfect spring day while the wicked winter wind swirls snow outside into the bleak roads of winter.