Spring

It was late winter and the weather was unusually warm for New Hampshire, fifty degrees in the shade. Bitter cold was finally yielding to spring, and we spread out onto the campus en masse. I was shying away from the outdoors, holed up in my dorm room with a paperback copy of an ancient science fiction rag that I picked up in a second hand junktique in Burlington. It mothball smell was intoxicating, and I set it down in hoping my head would clear. Outside a bus backfired and a skateboarder hit the pavement with a moan and a scrape and I couldn’t help but smile. I was drifting off to sleep when Joe Saternallia kicked in my door and jolted me back into reality. His red hair was a mess and his thin frame glasses were askew and his brown eyes were wild with elation.

“Hey Jack. Have you been outside yet?” “No Joe, no I haven’t.” He looked at me in disbelief. “You want to go for a walk? Heh?” “No Joe, I don’t really want to go for a walk.” He looked at me, his eyes pleading and imploring and asked me again and again until finally I said “Alright Joe, I’ll go for a walk with you, just please stop talking for a bit, sound good?” He looked hurt and I felt bad but I didn’t apologize. I grabbed a loose fitting Oxford shirt and we wandered outside into the daylight. He was moping along for a bit so I apologized to him and his spirits seemed to pick up and we started talking a bit. Small talk at best, but we were talking. The sun was shining bright down onto us and we soaked it up as we walked towards a clump of trees off in the distance.

We hadn’t been to this part of campus before, and so were wild eyed in wonder and excitement. We were in a rural neighborhood, one that reminded me of home and not of city dwelling college life that I had grown so weary of. We passed an old dilapidated A-Frame house surrounded by the dregs of a wonderful hippie commune. Two girls, one of them wearing only a bright red bra, were smoking pot on the roof and talking about something all consuming and all important. I tried to wave, to connect, but they were too absorbed in their dope to notice or care. We found a little trail that lead to the edge of a river and we sat ourselves down and stared out onto the water. The wind was blowing steady, the air was crisp and clean and I closed my eyes and listened to the song of the wild. I was home again, away from college, away from anyone I’ve ever known. Peace, calm, zen and the art of isolation.