Sure, I could go outside now, as a person who no longer smokes, but...I'm weirdly purpose-driven and feel like if I'm going to be outside, I should be doing something. I don't like wasting time. Time is the only thing I have that's worth anything.
Anyway, back to the outside. Smoking gave me something to do, outside.
Anyway, back to the outside. Smoking gave me something to do, outside.
In the winter time, as a non-smoker, it makes absolutely no sense to put on your coat and shoes and go outside and stand around for 5 minutes. Hell, that activity makes no sense in the Spring either. The difference is, in the Spring/Summer, the warmth makes the reasons to go outside so much more abundant. Almost every day, there is something, like, I'm sunning myself on this rock, or I'm raking the yard, or I'm planting/maintaining the flower bed, or I'm stirring the compost. Whatever it might be, it's easy to think of a reason--projects practically scream your name--and it's easy to put on flip-flops (or not) and just walk outside.
As I'm throwing my windows open to air temperatures that would make me slam those same windows shut in the Fall, my brain re-awakens to the infinite possibilities of the Spring. You can feel the potential. It's a beautiful thing.
Here is my little pledge for Spring, and it's not that I'm going to be better at maintaining the flower bed, or that I'll commit to getting out and taking walks every day. Those things are good and I will most certainly be keeping them in mind. Instead I just want to keep this feeling in my head--this fresh start feeling, where you know that things will get growing, literally and figuratively, as soon as you take an action--and I want to apply it to everything. That's the brain I want for the rest of 2011--kind of a gardener brain, who's willing to plant things and tend them and share a great big harvest when it's all grown tall at the end. THAT is what "outside" means to me--doing the work and seeing the results.
Cheers to leaving "just surviving" behind, if only for a little while, and getting back to thriving. Viva Spring!
Cheers to leaving "just surviving" behind, if only for a little while, and getting back to thriving. Viva Spring!
Yaay for thriving!
ReplyDeleteI love being outside all year round. But I'm probably the exception not the rule.
I enjoy shoveling snow, believe it or not...ha! I mean, it's another outside thing to do. And I would ski every single day and skip work altogether if I had the means. Maybe that's been a part of the problem this winter--skis never made it out of the basement. This winter was dreadful...blech.
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