Friday, February 15th 2013

They say Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox carved the ten thousand lakes from their travels during a blizzard. Each lake a giant hole from Babe’s hooves or Paul’s boots. Scientifically the Great Lakes and all ten thousand in Minnesota were not really crafted by the giant duo’s travels, but I find it’s more enjoyable to imagine that landscape is formed by such folklore.

            Baum is full of puddles today. The snow has melted and a short burst of rain has left the mucus colored grass littered with puddles. I tried to find a place dry enough for me to sit, but every inch of the small park is wet and muddy. I walk around the grass a bit. My rain boots ‘splosh’ and ‘splish’ with each step. I walk around in a circle as the repeating sound trances me and then I am no longer twenty-four, but ten. I am not 5’9”, but eleven feet tall. I tower over the trees and my boot-covered feet are the size of a small house. With each step I begin to create the puddles and dips in Baum’s grass. I am the myth they will talk about when I am gone. My travels will imprint this place, this landscape.

My swampy imagination seizes when a car drives by and pulls me out of its thick layers. It is as if I have drunk that glass bottle labeled “reality” and shrink back to normal size. I laugh at myself for a moment and then decide to sit down and write. 

There has been a change in weather and I welcome it. I know it won’t stay long. Pittsburgh is notorious for it’s fickle weather. Rain one hour, snow the next, and if we’re lucky a bit of sun. Today it’s cloudy, but hasn’t rained yet. There’s always a chance it will within the next hour.

            Without the fresh coat of snow Baum looks and feels sleepy. The grass isn’t an emerald green or blowing in the wind. The branches of the trees are bare and the plants in the small garden are dried, tan, and feel crispy like the peelings of a dried ear of corn. Even the murky grey sky seemed to add a feeling of drowsiness to the park. I become anxious thinking about a season change and what will transpire in Baum when springs kiss awakens the landscape. 

Saturday, February 2nd, 2013

            I was up before my alarm. Two hours before the consistent chime of my cell phone would ring out into the quiet bedroom. I was wide awake with a scratchy throat and a clogged nose. As my twelve-year-old self would say, “I have the crummies.” Instead of pulling my covers over my head and going back to sleep I threw off my blankets and got out of bed. Twenty tissues later, I was able to breathe a bit better and headed down to the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee.

            One of my roommates was sitting at the kitchen table on her laptop working on a paper when I entered. She asked me how I was and I grumble a response. My throat was burning with every movement that talking was somewhat unbearable. I put the grounds in my coffee maker and stood at the kitchen window waiting for the water to heat. Outside the snow was falling slowly and a fresh batch covered the driveway and the garage roof. Behind me my roommate asked me what my plans were for the day. I replied that I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to work because I was having a bad case of the crummies. She suggested I bundle up, go to Starbucks, and then walk around in the snow. “I know how much you love it,” she had said.

And she was right.

So I shut off the coffee maker, put on several layers of clothing, boots, a hat, mittens, and my warmest jacket and trekked a few blocks to Starbucks. With a hot, fresh cup of coffee in my mitten covered hand I walked in the dull light of the morning feeling a tinge better than I had an hour before. I decided even thought I was sick that I would venture to Baum because I wasn’t sure I would be up for a visit any other time this weekend.

            The park looked just as it had a week earlier. Untouched, clean, and magically white. Maybe someone else had come through before, but the fresh snow would have erased any memory that they had been there. I brushed the snow off the bench facing the crab apple tree and took a seat. The coffee was warm and rich making my throat feel a little better and warmed my hands inside my wet mittens.

            I watched the bench across from where I sat gather with snow until a door across the street closed and a person with their husky took off on a walk. They didn’t cross or enter the parklet, but they walked by. The husky’s nose led the charge into the snow. It made me think about what exactly my own dog would be doing nine hundred miles away in Minnesota. I checked my phone for the temperature in Minneapolis. Negative thirteen. Soda, my dog, was most likely sleeping in her round bed on the floor of the hallway outside my old bedroom. I imagined her there with my in the parklet. How much she would enjoy the tiny space covered in snow. Individual flakes would stick to her black fur and create a sort of white beard on her nose. She would roll around on her back and if I rolled up a snowball and tossed it into the air she would jump and catch it only to shatter the ball into hundreds of snowflakes.

            I didn’t stay long after my imagination drew back into the real world. My coffee cup was empty and my nose was running and I hadn’t thought to bring any tissues. However, I decided that despite the crummies and oncoming cold that the short visit to Baum and the walk home put me in better spirits about spending the rest of the day and weekend in bed sick.