It appears there's little room left in one's brain for introspection of any sort when one has an eighteen month old puppeteer stringing one along day to day as one might a marionette. The closest to feeling any sort of deepness of thought is to fit in some interesting article in The New Yorker or The Atlantic while I nurse her down for a nap or to bed. The problem there is that (A) I'm too tired to register the words that my eyes are struggling to decipher (B) I have no one to talk to about such provoking ideas for at least a few hours and so they die a slow, anonymous death and slip away into the black and red oblivion that is my useless brain or (C) I say "hmm, how interesting", ramble off the entire contents of the ten pages I've tried desperately to memorize to Jason and then drink a glass of wine and retire to Top Chef, The Office or inane American awfulness like American Idol.
Tonight though there is rain. That ever beautiful tap tap tapping of condensation falling miles to your roof reminding you that yes, you can take this moment to be present. There is nothing more forcefully introspective, besides perhaps the rolling of the ocean against the shore, than rain. I realize it's February and so I'm maybe a little just sick of the damn cold and snow and I wouldn't mind a little washing away of the three feet in the back yard. It also means that yes! finally it's above freezing which is always an incredible moment, especially here in Vermont. People were jacket less today, their mittens nowhere to be seen, I saw a woman's legs! We go a bit berserk when it hits 40 but we're forgiven I believe. It won't last and we'll be frozen hermits before we know it but we'll have a spark of hope revived. Spring is somewhere in the distance our slightly thawed souls scream.
For now, I'll just sit in this pleasant almost-silence, listening to a toddler breathe, the rain remind me of now and the buzz of a computer connect me to somebody somewhere.
