a beautiful day

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. - e.e. cummings -

And so indeed it was this fine winter's morning. The rains of the past five days have taken flight to other climes having scrubbed to sparkling blue the sky between the languid white clouds.

The air was brisk and bracing and the streets are, for the moment anyway, almost glistening in the early morning sun. I consciously thought that it was indeed a beautiful day and instantly U2's song immediately began to play in my head and hum...absently, intently, naturally...from my throat.

Walking my neighborhood to complete some errands (the poor souls working in the local Target looking like zombies in un-matching burgandy shirts...didn't they know that winter was putting on a delightfully bright and breezy show just outside the dull pastel walls of their place of employment?) I force myself...several times in fact...to resist listening to the child inside and splash in the reflective puddles collected by intersections along the way (the child inside might have taken delight in having to continue the journey with soaked shoes, socks, and jeans but the adult in me...crabby spoilsport that he so often is...having firmly decided to forgo that particular pleasure this time.)

I resisted too the urge to scatter the congenial flock of seagulls sharing gossip (or whatever it is that seagulls do when they flock together) on the almost-empty parking lot outside Mervyns, giving them a wide enough berth to not feel threatened and moving on to my appointed rounds...the child in me was again disappointed but he'd get over it.

Making small talk with the zombies in burgandy, I completed my purchase and moved back into the morning humming..."it's a beautiful day...don't let it get away"...and wondering, the impish grin of the child inside briefly ascendant, if those seagulls were still hanging out over by Mervyns.