A Book And A Bench

Here we find Nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. We have crept out of our close and crowded houses into the night and morning, and we see what majestic beauties daily wrap us in their bosom.
Nature

Spring has sprung, people:
Get out there and feel it!

My British friends are already on the case.
Here is a fabulous pic from my rambler pal Debra.

St James’s Park is already gorgeous!

As the Royal Parks were exactly one year ago today.
When I went for one of my favorite strolls.

Regent’s Park.

Hyde Park.

And Green Park.

Today I thought about the second totally insane adventure of my life.
The first was going to England 20 years ago:
No job, no friends, no Bruins, no Celts!

Wacko Decision Number Two: Coming back to America!

I knew one thing for sure: if I was going to return to a media-obsessed, fear-throttled homeland of insecurity, I would need a quiet place to seek refuge.

Outside. In the sun.
Basking in all three glorious dimensions.

What Milton called “the Book of knowledge fair”.
That is to say, the world.

Enter the Public Garden.
Which is what I did today.
And just about every day.

To sit on my bench.

Whenever possible.

By the way, I am very pleased with the snow totals this winter:
38.4 inches (That’s about a meter to you folks across the pond).
The Boston seasonal average is just 32.2 inches.

I will do an update after the final snowstorm.
In April. Or May.

Long, long ago, I imagined what the first day of spring would look like in Boston.

I knew where I would be sitting.
What I would be reading.
And exactly where to get the book.

Just across from the Common.
Over Tremont Street, down West Street.

I bought it yesterday. To read today.
Emerson’s Essays.

The essay Nature is in the Second Series.

There are no flowers in the Public Garden.

Spring in England comes far earlier than it does here.

For now, there is just this budding horse chestnut.

But the flowers, they will come.

Until then, I will have my book.

And my bench.