posted 2007/05/21 at 19:24
I really, really don't like the fact that I've been tied here to my bedroom so much lately with everything I've been working on. May is probably the best month weather-wise here, because the temperatures get warm enough that it feels warm but not unbearably hot like it starts to get in June. Certainly there are still the odd days where the temperatures hit extremes -- we've been as high as 90 degrees and as low as 40 in just the past two weeks alone -- but on the whole the days are, for lack of a more descriptive word, nice. During the day you should probably be wearing a long-sleeve shirt or a light coat, but your body is still so used to winter weather that it still feels like short-sleeve weather, when the sun shines on you it's a gentle warmth, and the breezes only send the slightest chills through your body.
Unfortunately, I've been sitting in front of my computer most all the time recently working on things, which means that I get to see the trees outside my window grow their leaves as Toledo turns towards summer, but I hardly ever seem to get out of here, let alone out to enjoy this weather. I definitely want to go out and take some photos of the late spring here, not just for posting on the .org but for my own sake as well, but I don't see myself having the time to do that any time soon. The closest thing I get to enjoying this weather is opening my window and letting some fresh air in, or sometimes when I'm downstairs waiting for a meal to cook I'll head out onto the back porch and scratch Skooter for a little bit. (She still hasn't lost her winter coat and I'm worried that come the dog days of summer she'll be sweltering under all that fur.)
I don't want to sound like a luddite here, but there are times when I really wonder what all of this technology is doing to us, the spirits inside of us. When I go on my political polemics I can list all kinds of reasons as to why we as a people seem to be becoming less and less satisfied with our lives and our communities, and most of them have to do with capitalistic society and imbalances of power and all of that. At times like this, though, I have to wonder just how much better we would all be if we could just switch off these blasted computers for just the tiniest while and get back out there with the trees and the flowers. I wouldn't give up my computer and my Internet connection for anything, but I need to get better at giving them up for short whiles so I can start being in nature instead of just looking at it up here in my bedroom.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon