This is the first time in awhile that I've had such a good day that I felt the need to tell y'all about it. It's not that I haven't had good days, of course, but there is a special quality to days requiring blogging -- it has to be good in enough different ways that no one person experienced the whole thing with me, or the urge to share has a natural ground. Also, if it was truly terrific, it probably lasted late into the night, at which point I am going to sleep and not blog -- so it can't be truly terrific. It also can't end right before dinner. All this conspires to make required blogging rare, and usually it is a matter of conscience. (I am convinced my memory and my conscience are in cahoots. I forget to blog so I needn't feel guilty. Memory, conscience, I'm onto you guys ... Wait, what was I talking about?)
Of course, any day loses something of itself in translation, and the more I think about it the less spectacular this day was. Well, it doesn't have to be. At least it's not traffic, right?
I just watched a movie with my friend Charles called Goya's Ghosts. It was not very much about Goya and not at all about ordinary ghosts. All you need to know is that it was about the Inquisition. In the end, the only happy character was insane. The overarching question: what does sanity even mean in an insane world? Sometimes life is grotesquely absurd.
What makes a day is the mood of a moment. I had a perfect one walking back to Keep just now. Charles and I were walking back to north campus when my friend Mia caught up with us. As we were all walking together, I caught sight of a gorgeous spaniel across the lawn. I looked for a good few minutes before I realized I knew her, and her owner. "Steve!" cried Mia, to the owner. "Erie!" cried I, to the dog. Erie and Charles hit it off immediately, and as she jumped around us and snuffled our stomachs I noticed the first flakes of snow.
Snow! I am probably the only person left on campus overjoyed to see snowfall. The narcissi, it turns out, can fend for themselves, and the delicate unfurled crocuses have had their day. So I welcome it without reservation. I looked out the window just a moment ago and found my view obscured by snow. I looked back just now, writing this sentence, and the sky was clear.
I could probably draw some important lesson from absurd weather about the vagaries of life, but who cares? Change is so constant it is useless to begin. Just before I began this blog entry, the sun came out and I rushed outside to experience my first sunlit snowfall. I stood in the parking lot and laughed like an idiot and thanked God and hugged a tree. Sometimes life is deliciously absurd.
