And A River Runs [All Over] It

Now this is what I'm talking about.

This is the spring I dream of.  Warm, sunny, bird-chirpy and full of mud.  It seems funny that of all the smells I've smelled, one of my most favorite is the aroma of recently upturned dirt.  There such a sweet irony to the idea that something we associate semantically with filth and nastiness can smell so dang clean.   I once bought C this Demeter cologne, and was pleasantly surprised that this was no essence de pig, but was rather an almost perfect replication of the beautifully musty, heavenly clean smell of a mud pie.

I'm currently sitting in an adirondack chair, on our porch, looking out over the grand front lawn of camp, still covered in sad, browning snow.  There is water trickling somewhere (everywhere) due to the snowmelt, and little streams and rivers are making themselves seen on trails and along dirt roads.

Yesterday, C and I took out our cross-country skis and had a nice little jaunt through the woods.  I know that there won't be enough snow cover for this activity much longer, because along our way, we passed puddle after pond after small lake of standing water.

I got a good look at one, in particular.  After visiting our co-workers/friends/fellow-commune-dwellers on the other side of the [real] pond, we turned around to take a slightly different route home.  This route would bring us down along the shore and back to connect to the lakeside trail that would take us home.  One of these friends had, 15 minutes earlier, pointed out the dead beaver that was "resting" at the base of a pine tree near the trail.  This was, allegedly, for luring coyotes, but was still pretty much an identifiable beaver at this point, albeit with entrails stringing out along the ground.  

Anyhow, we hiked up the snowbank by the driveway and whooshed our way down toward the shore trail, all with the grace and beauty of a pair of hippos on ice skates.  Sure, it was a little mushy down there, but with 60-degree weather in March, what's not mushy?  We pressed on.  

And then I pressed a little too far forward.  

Have you ever seen such a stride?

I don't have a picture of what happened next, because unfortunately my iPhone was under 4 inches of water for most of the duration.  The tree well - the beaver-tree well -  had filled with gallons and gallons [and gallons] of snowmelt, and though covered by a thinnish layer of snow, the dark water was the clear property holder.  Here, in this slushy mess, I lurched.  And in the briefest instant, I was on my stomach, drinking it all in... 

gulp after beaverish gulp.

Fortunately, my phone came through the incident astonishingly well, and despite being soaking wet, I was adequately warm in the toasty afternoon air.  Apart from the squishing in my boots, all was fine in the world.  

Relatively fine, I suppose.  

The aroma of dirt wafting through the air is a high point of this particular spring,  but the giardia is bound to be a real downer.

They Are Who We Thought They Were

An hour ago, my husband was in our den, sitting on the floor inside a brand-new Fun-series Jackson Kayak.  On the floor, in his kayak, with his paddle, practicing his bracing.

On

the

floor.

And he couldn't have been more excited.  He was over-the-moon, more-than-a-clam, teenager-in-love happy.

Why is it that things make us feel good?  Even as I write it, I have this instinctual desire to turn up my nose at the idea that a kayak could spark inner cheer.  I want to make some qualifying statement, like

"it only seems like happiness",

or, spoken like a true New Englander,

"material things will always let us down".

Don't you feel it?  We're fixed in a mantra that trains us to overlook the little things.  We don't even take a proper moment to revel in the small delights that are easy to come by, simply because they are just as easy for us to lose.  

Yes, you're right - a fresh flower bouquet is sort of already dead.  

Yes, that glue on the back of your new insurance card will lose it's stickiness after a minute or two.  

Yes, the tiny marshmallows on your hot cocoa will get squishy.

But they're crunchy right now, aren't they?

So come on, admit it - it's possible that this kind of thing can make us happy.  I'm talking about simple satisfaction, high spirits, endorphins -  stuff that makes you laugh and shoot Jello out of your nose (not that I've done that).  I'm not going to give material goods some crazy qualitative value, because hopefully we all know that the better part of life is not actually found in what we see and touch, but is beyond and around it. However, in the day-to-day of walking this earth, there are lots of things that make me sprout a smile:

• Kiwi, the black cat, who's off licking her hindquarters somewhere
• Vanilla soft-serve ice cream
• Daffodils, and imagining the existence of spring somewhere 
• Large animals with small legs

We went to find this guy ten minutes later and he was gone... but how?

• Mixing stuff with my hands
• Nights when it's so dark that you can't even see your arms in front of you
• Temperatures above 30* F 
• Wicked awesome cards that my friend Jenn makes

• Freeze-dried bananas
• Mud [that I can mix with my hands]

Now, I know what you might be thinking: But M, finding happiness in temporal things can really mess us up, and yeah, you're right.  I totally agree.  Lets each hope that our small delights are the right ones, like puppies and pine trees rather than crack cocaine and cheap gin.  Or Jersey Shore and circus peanuts, for that matter.  If those are your happy things, you should call someone.

Right now.

By this point, C has finished his stint as an indoor kayak dynamo, and is washing a steel pot which held the beef stew we had for dinner.  A fire is crackling in the woodstove, Kiwi has returned to languish on a chair in the corner, and the marshmallows in my hot cocoa are still crunchy.  These are good things.  Temporary, but good.

And I am going to enjoy them.   One happy, crunchy bite at a time.