Demands of an Inner Teleology

Because Presidents have died so we could work weekends, or something like that, we are celebrating Presidents Day Weekend as we would any normal day: Dad’s working. Mom’s brewing more coffee. Baby’s being beatific, thriving in the quick synapse between “Oh Wow!” and “Oh no!” I would renounce all philosophy to live there.

A winter storm—red sky, falling snow—reminds us Spring is far away. This morning I forced myself to go to the park with Jake and I saw an ugly plant I recognized as witch hazel. It was flowering its scraggly mustardy flowers. I breathed it in deeply and caught a whiff of its perfume, February’s only consolation. I know Spring will cause a pure delirium in me this year, as always. I may fantasize about L.A. and endless summer, but I’m enough of a New Yorker now to say, without irony, “Yeah, we thought about moving to Montclair but now we just think we’ll stay in Park Slope until we can escape to Vermont.”