When the Place Becomes the Post

It took me a little while to get the screen brightness and the angle of the screen just right so I could write here, outdoors, under a full sun, but I'm finally fulfilling that urge from last week to write from a remote location.  I'm at a municipal park, by a picnic table alongside a baseball field, although I had pondered what might have transpired had I simply walked into someone's backyard where there was a table and chairs, and set up camp.  Seeing an old geezer sitting in one's yard typing might be less disturbing than other things said geezer might be found doing in one's yard, but while such thoughts come to me now and then, because as I'm often reminded  "normal" is just a setting on a washing machine, I don't usually act on them.  Well, unless sufficiently dared or given some other compelling impetus to do so.

 

The dot just beyond the first base line is where I set up camp to type today's blog entry.

There are times when I buy something on impulse and am barely back to the house when my brain starts yelling, "What the hell did you buy THAT for?  Such is not the case, though, with the Bluetooth keyboard which is interfaced with the tablet and upon which I am now typing.  The key spacing is nearly identical to that on a full sized keyboard so that I'm keying my thoughts just as quickly as I can do on the desktop PC keyboard.  Most crucial, that all important backspace key is right where my finger expects to find it, so all is good!

 The scooter barely fits through the opening beside the closed and locked gate to the fields.

The peacefulness out here is even deeper than by my desk at home where street noise is an ambient undercurrent to which one grows accustomed, but which is always somewhat distracting.  Admittedly there's a nearby crow that caws out a guttural hello now and then, but he's part of the overall scene here and very welcome as long as he doesn't fly overhead and feel the need to gift me.  I could get used to a place like this very quickly, but for the coming winter which my joints and other parts of me are already fearing.  

 How much happier I'd be overall if there were never the threat of snow, and I'll never understand in a million years the people who look forward to its coming.  For one who used to prefer the cold to the heat of summer, I'm starting to become one of those old people who bundle up in multiple layers just to watch the evening's offering on TV.  I'm finding my sitting here in a full sunbeam to be most pleasant, no doubt though because of low humidity, a gentle breeze, and not much heat being radiated back at me from surrounding objects.  

 What might it have been like had I been able to spend my career by teaching in an outdoor setting such as this one?  But, today's a relatively perfect day as far as days go with the sun and breeze so well balanced, and all without bugs except for the stray ant who was here on the table when I arrived.

 

I need to mention that without the scooter I couldn't be here.  The entrance to this area of the sports complex is gated to prevent vehicular access, but a small gap in the fencing allows the Piaggio and me to sneak though.  Oh, I suppose a desperate person might park in the parking lot at the other end and hike to where I am, but since any lengthy walking these days done by yours truly is with the aid of a wheeled walker, it would not be I walking from the lot to where I am now.

 

It shouldn't surprise me, I suppose, that the simple place from which I'm writing this has become the focus of the post.  I've done that before when writing from somewhere other than at my usual space by my desk.  It's so truly liberating this feeling of isolation and peacefulness, that it would be difficult to concentrate on other things if I needed to do so.  What I write here for the blog, while it will be read by a few others, is really for me as kind of an extension to the keen introspection that often occupies me when I'm on the scooter heading nowhere in particular.  I want to remember these most pleasant moments in the days ahead when the daylight will become shorter yet and the temperatures, even in full sunlight will confine me to the usual PC desk in a way that's nearly claustrophobic.  I want to fill up on times like this to sustain me during winter’s grip of the cold and the darkness that will virtually enshroud my spirit for weeks on end.

 

Part of why I take so many pictures, on and off the scooter, is to catalog and store up memories for when I need to return to them to help me move myself beyond a stronghold of negative things, be they weather phenomena, health issues, general doldrums, or other items of mental rubbish that need to be purged.  Blog entries, too, can take me back when I need them to, to easier, simpler, more joyful times than the ones in which I’m facing some forms of unpleasant reality.  I can easily envision this post to be one that I’ll revisit more than once during the winter months, not only to savor the memories of what is, at the moment, a delicious day all around, but to give me something to look forward to when the double whammy of cold and dark creeps into my bones and does its best to make me sigh, “Meh,” as my daughters would grunt in less than ideal times and circumstances.

 

In just a little while I’ll put the finishing touches on this piece of writing, pack up my things, and head out of this wonderful bit of time in which I’m wallowing.  Back at the house I’ll put this together with the pictures I’ve taken while pausing between paragraphs and sentences, no doubt by then with some supper in me and my evening lounging clothes on me.  After that it will be time to read a few friends’ two-wheel blogs, savor something warm - something Sonja M. might refer to as a “cuppa” – and pull in the sidewalk for another long (almost winter’s) nap.  Life is good today.  Here’s a prayer that tomorrow will be too, for all of us.  God bless us, everyone!