Slivers of springtime revelry

If I was to pick any day to be a mermaid, today would probably be that day.

Yesterday Paul said to me, “Every spring there is a day where I’m like, ‘Oh. Wow. I had forgotten that there are outside smells.”

Sure enough! You know how you can stick your face in a refrigerator and say, “Huh, something smells funny,” but you can’t really do that in a freezer because frozen stuff doesn’t really carry scent? That is what it is like living in a Winter-world where everything has been frozen for months.

Today I walked down to the river and thought to myself, “Well. Look at this. There are scents.” The trees and the grass and the city-air bustle and the breeze off of the river…they all carry the smell of spring.

The river is thawed, now.

I ate some salad sitting off of a concrete step, my preferred perch for river-lunches. I hadn’t been there for months, forced indoors by snow and ice and slicing winds.

A seagull cawed and landed nearby. Some school kids ran past me. A few cyclists rode by, playing their old-school Motown hits.

And I thought to myself, “I think I could be a mermaid on a day like this.”

If I was a mermaid today, I would play with the otters and beavers who somersault along the banks. We could swim in the water from here all the way to Mackinac and down the other side of Michigan, waving to the people who have turned up to walk along the shore.

But, I’m not.

So I basically just finished my salad and went back to work.

Besides, legs aren’t all that bad…without them, I would have no hope for going dancing this weekend. 🙂