One Without The Other

The girls are back in business

It was lights out at 8:00 last night; the boys and I were in recovery mode from the Blackberry Smoke concert we attended the previous evening, a raucous affair that lasted into the wee hours. Courtesy of a highly inebriated middle age couple who took a liking to my children (and then got hauled off by security for being so drunk they could hardly stand [the couple, not my children]), the fellows were afforded a front row perspective, peering over the security barrier in wide-eyed wonder. I suppose some would deem it irresponsible that we expose our children to the debauchery of an honest-to-goodness rock n’ roll show, and indeed, they were the only young ‘uns in attendance. But then, I suspect it’s only a fraction of the debauchery most kids experience over the course of  the average school day, so there. Plus, we have a wicked weakness for old fashioned ass-kicking rock, and BBS definitely qualifies.

‘tater and onion pancakes with eggs on top. Not bad at all.

The spring thaw has finally commenced. Yesterday touched 50, the sun in full bloom, the snow slowly retreating under its glare. I spent an hour on the tractor, busting out a path for the feeding of our remaining round bales, and at one point I had to just stop and sit for a few minutes, soaking up a dose of Vitamin D. It’s been hard winter. That’s not a complaint; just a statement of fact, and if anything, I am grateful for it, because I know my appreciation for days like yesterday is in large part informed by the preceding weeks and months. I guess it’s analogous to something I wrote about the writing process a while back: The pleasure isn’t just tilting my my face to the sun on the first jacket-less day in five months, but rather in the contrast between all those raw, bundled days and that moment yesterday afternoon when I shut the tractor off and sat in the sudden silence, remembering (not that I’d forgotten, but still: Remembering) that for all its flaws, the world is an amazing place, and that furthermore, for all my flaws, along with the myriad small hardships we endure to live as we do, my life is good. It could even be said, perhaps, that it rocks.

I think this: You cannot have warmth without cold. Satiation without hunger. There is no comfort without discomfort, no restoration of body and spirit without their fatigue. What I’m saying is, you cannot exhale without having inhaled.

Yesterday, I exhaled. And it felt really friggin’ good.