1. The park was covered in flowers, many of which — like the rest of us — had suffered through some very cold weeks and months and were now making up for lost time.
2. As much as I enjoyed this scene, I acknowledged some regret about missing the “super bloom” out west, where miles of desert and mountain are now covered in undulating, phantasmagoric rivers of color as the landscape recovers from years of drought. I now regretted clicking though to the article, which like so much of the internet came with a dose of relative dissatisfaction and shortfall. I closed this “mental tab” and reminded myself to “live in the moment,” but not before I remembered that the article had also mentioned the hordes of tourists who had descended on the super bloom, which helped to assuage my #FOMO.
3. It was better to be here, alone with the plants, the morning light, the chirping birds, and my neurotic thoughts.
4. I felt more than some gratitude for/astonishment at the scene in front of me. I was in running shorts for the first time this year (except for that freakishly hot weekend in February), and was still feeling good about putting my cold-weather gear into the deepest part of my closet, where I will pretend it doesn’t exist for the next six months or so. Maybe my former therapist was right: denial is the source of all happiness.
5. I startled a flock of daffodils, which took off through the leaves with a flapping of bright yellow.
6. One thing I’ve developed lately as a result of running so much is greater empathy for women who get catcalled. For some reason, a certain number of men (and guess what: it’s always men) feel compelled to say dumb shit when I pass them. Sometimes it’s fairly innocuous (but still distracting when I’m mentally juggling a lot and trying not to trip or run into anyone/anything), like “way to go, bud,” or “keep on truckin'” but sometimes it’s more mean-spirited, like the other day when I passed this guy, walking next to his five-year old kid, and he shouted “RUN . . . RUN!” as if the implicit mockworthiness of running needs to be sarcastically noted as loudly as possible while you walk your son to school. I’ve trained myself never to respond and don’t care THAT much — and don’t want to equate it in any real way with catcalls, because it’s not like I feel physically threatened/sexually harassed — but PSA: men, you seriously need to STFU when you’re on a city sidewalk because you’re breaking a code of urban living, which is keep your mouth shut because nobody wants to hear it. People run, get over it. If you want to scream at runners, go to the marathon.
7. Back home, others expressed impatience with the term catcall, which I had to agree was a fair point, because 1) it makes the action seem slightly benign and/or comical, and 2) it’s offensive to actual cats. I resolved henceforth to use the word “harass.”
8. In less contentious news, our cold-hardy camellia was in bloom, which is always a highlight of the spring garden.
9. We had waited a long time for this.
10. And now that it was here, nothing could be better.
