It doesn’t require much of a lull in activity before I begin to doubt myself. Almost everything I do whether bicycling, writing or playing the piano is a construct of self-expression without which I lose my balance. This is not to say I cannot cycle to the beach and enjoy myself; it’s just that the preamble is necessary to authenticate the venture. Perhaps it is to excuse or warrant the indulgence. When you think of it, having an imperative for daily activity is not offensive.  In fact  – in its most generous interpretation – the agenda promotes profitable undertakings.

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Spring has sprung
by Rocci Fisch, American political commentator

Spring has sprung
The college kids, their worries flung
Others too, the visitors came
Wall-to-wall to lay their claim
In crowds they were, Miami Beach
To celebrate, a break for each
Maskless people all around
Social distance run aground
Covid lurks, seeks spreader events
Disperse those kids, try to prevent
Institute curfew, 8 p.m.
But partying went on, and cops moved in
Tensions rose, pepper balls fired
A stampede fled, party time expired

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Rightly or not I have always thought of March 21st as the beginning of spring. My brief internet research tells me otherwise:

Spring 2021
in Northern Hemisphere began on
Saturday
March 20

and ends on
Sunday
June 20
All dates are in Eastern Time.

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– Mon ami, dit ma mère, ne craignez-vous pas que, parmi ces enfants, il n’y en ait de mauvais ? – Les mauvais eux-mêmes, répondit mon père, lui seront utiles s’il est intelligent, car il apprendra à les distinguer des bons, et c’est une connaissance fort nécessaire.

France, Anatole. “Le livre de mon ami.”

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After my bicycle ride this morning I sat on a bench seat of synthetic cane weave on the patio located in the back yard of the apartment building. I closed my eyes and faced directly into the rising sun.  It was approaching 9:00 am and the sun was positioned just barely above the tops of the row houses in the distance. The heat began rising perceptibly. The forecast today is for a high of 13°C by late afternoon; then progressively higher over the next several days before beginning to descend a week hence. We’re in a noticeable high with sunshine predicted throughout. Already I am imagining what it will be like to wear shorts again!

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Whenever we stay at a hotel and have breakfast at one of those buffet-style troughs I always make a direct line for the bacon tray.  It is fairly reliable – indeed I’d say predictable – that the bacon chafing dish will make an appearance at any of these morning or brunch foraging affairs. The quantities available are positively mountainous. As a result the bacon is an invitation beyond restraint! And unrestrained I am.  There is no question whatsoever in my mind that I suffer a psychological perversion of surplus. It isn’t a matter of greed which has a moral connotation much like the word cupidity implying as it does covetousness. No, my affliction – though reminiscent of the biblical immorality of excess – is diluted by the word gourmandizing which contains the elevated suggestion of gourmet (a certain description of bacon’s appeal to me especially now that I’ve discovered PC Old-fashioned Style bacon). Yet admittedly my distortion is closer to piggishness than to hankering, moral or immoral. I could perhaps temper it by saying simply edacity but that is clearly too arcane.

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Anyone who has been on a working farm knows that, like childbirth (or so I imagine), there’s a lot more to it than is normally shared. In fact the human animal is itself no less prone to the vulgarities of waste and accommodation. I say this not despairingly but rather as a confession of the hard reality we are from time to time obliged to address. From the instant of birth the child is devoted solely to three things: ingesting, expunging and sleep, normally in that order. The miracle that is life translates the first two ingredients into the ineffable. As for the rest – pardon the pun – that is, the sleep and the accommodation in which it takes places, that’s up to us to take care of, on our own, unassisted by anything as mystical as creation or the unfolding mystery of the universe. I speak of housekeeping.

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An alcoholic does by nature welcome the fortuity of an occasion to drink.  This does not however mean that the employment is without restriction. Being one myself – that is, a “recovering alcoholic” – I am able to blather with some credibility upon the subject of drinking. The last time I had a drink (of anything alcoholic) was December, 2013 on the occasion of my 65th birthday. I don’t recall getting hopelessly drunk or anything persuasive like that. I think I was just fed up with alcohol and its mirage – much for the same reason I had abruptly quit cigarette smoking when I was turning 50 in 1998 (actually we were on a plane coming back from the Caribbean and I was having difficulty breathing). In both cases the abandonment was precipitous and the so-called pleasures have never been repeated.

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Each day brings news of the pandemic, some encouraging, some discouraging, little that is conclusive. There seems always to be the threat of a new strain.  Whether it is merely a caution to avoid lapsing from the usual detail of social distancing and wearing a mask, there are also warnings about renewed contamination. Will it ever end?

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No Room for a Bed
by Rocci Fisch, American Political Commentator

The stimulus checks, they’re in the mail
Americans who need the dough can now exhale
Real cash money on the way
Giving it to people who need some pay

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