almost okay

Dear Lyzako,

At the risk of sounding like some soft-headed simpleton, I must tell you that a brisk morning walk coupled with a single day of sobriety has helped me to slather a tablespoonful of optimism on this shit sandwich that has been my life of late. It was cold, to be sure, and I should have worn gloves, but the birds were singing and the sun was popping out between the clouds and all felt right with the world.

I made my way along the boulevard, passed by the city offices, the high school and the library, then looped through the park, encountering only a couple of stragglers slowly making their way to church. Puddles of standing water left by the melting snow were everywhere, a thin layer of ice over all due to last night's plunge below freezing. There was a fair amount of ugly debris along the sidewalk, at the curb and crowded around storm drains, exposed by Friday's sudden thaw. I saw empty booze and beer bottles - whole and in sharp fragments, crushed pop cans, yogurt cups, candy wrappers, lost gloves of all sizes and colors, and a single page torn from a Spiderman coloring book, Spidey scribbled all blue by an enthusiastically free child's hand.

As much as I complained about the winter here this year, with its record snowfall and bitter cold, without it there would be no real sense of spring. Along my walk I breathed in the cool fresh air as though experiencing it for the first time, felt the sun warm me when the clouds allowed it, and even though spring doesn't officially begin until Thursday, I felt it in my heart already.

When you moved to the West Coast last summer I told you that I envied you, but honestly, I think I'd miss the sharp weather changes that the seasons bring here in Michigan. I'm sure there are seasonal differences in the Bay area as well, but nothing can compare to the feeling one gets when the days get longer and we emerge from the frigid darkness of winter. Finally we can reclaim the outdoors for work and play, fire up the grill that first warm day, take in the scent of charcoal and scorched animal flesh that slowly permeates the neighborhood as everyone joins in the ritual.

No doubt the experience is heightened by the severity of the change from one season to the other. The sense of rebirth in springtime seems even more miraculous after a winter that challenges us and keeps us indoors huddled around the fire, and the colorful splendor of autumn (my favorite season of them all) is made twice as glorious when it follows a particularly hot and stifling summer.

On my way back I decided to pick up that page from the coloring book I saw, folded it neatly in quarters and pressed it into my pocket. There was something about it that inspired me. Whether it was the fact that Spidey was a favorite of mine as a comic book-collecting kid (I still have those early issues squirreled away in a closet!) or whether it simply made me feel like a child again - the carefree, outside-the-line scribbles imparting upon me a long-lost sense of freedom, I can't be sure. Maybe it's a little of both.

In any event, it made me feel good, that much I can tell you. So this morning I've decided to believe in the spirit of spring, believe in the possibilities of rebirth and renewal, believe the birds who insistently sang to me as I walked.

“Wake up, you idiot!”, they chirped. “Wake up and live!”

Warm Regards,
Marty Sherman

PS Just to let you know I haven't gone completely rosy and sentimental... I did wake up to the sound of birds this morning, but not songs. No, it was yet another stupid, annoying sparrow noisily scratching around and attempting to nest at the end of the gutter near my bedroom window. When I returned from my walk, I killed it. What's one less wise-ass bird in the world?