and yes, academic life, even the low academic life has its charms and freedoms. I technically go to work twice a week these days, although the other 5 days its working at home and not in the sense in which non-academics use that phrase as a euphemism for taking a day off. that still gives me a lot of time, to read, to cook (these occasions are getting rarer though simply because of living alone), and to be slow.

and yet I haven't gone for a morning run in about a year now. nor do I get out in the mornings at all, unless my teaching schedule forces me to. I have a feeling this has something to do with the strange constant state of a stuffed and running nose that I have now cos it sort of started when the running stopped or got rarer. anyway, so today after putting to good use some of the extra time gained due to an earlier than usual opening of these eyes calling up my sis and speaking at length with her, I decided to get out, but not to run. and I had good reason, there wasn't anything to eat in my fridge.

it was raining, then drizzling, then gave way; plus spring has settled in. my car got (an otherwise denied) wash and my mind got an overdose of green.
it was beautiful all around, like an exaggeration of the youth of green. there's a very clear difference between the darker green of the mature and tired leaves, and this green, a metaphor of birth, youthfulness, of energy and anticipation.

I ended up driving much farther, to never before roads, through a park bursting with greenery. I saw the duck pond drained of water (probably being cleaned out) and because this was a week-day, there were very few people around. it felt like it all belonged to me. somehow 'green' doesn't say it half as well as 'verde' does, the latter gives the sense of lush-ness that I'm talking about.