Thoughts with Richard Bleil
Today, as I write this (a few days before it posts), it is the start of Daylight Savings Time. Outside the weather is overcast, cold and frosty, but we’ve had days in the ‘50’s. Everything is gray, drab, dead. Leaves that have not been collected litter the ground, and the trees are bare.
But Spring Equinox is just four days away. March has marched in like a lion, but we have yet to see how it marches out. Easter, celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of Spring is about four weeks out (April 9 this year), and the Drive-In theater will have its first public event in a couple of weeks (a “shop and swap”). Sadly, the flies have begun visiting my home as well.
Before long, I’ll probably turn my home heating and central air off for a few weeks. I’ll change out the air filter in anticipation of switching it from “Heat” to “Cool”. And Love is in the air. Well, for somebody, anyway. Not for me, of course.
This spring I will celebrate being on this planet for sixty years. Six decades. Sixty long, miserable, lonely years. Yay, me. I’ll probably celebrate it working, which, in my life, beats the hell out of celebrating it alone.
Spring has long been my favorite season. It’s a season of rebirth, colors, and a reinvigoration after a season of hiding from the weather. The birds return, the gardens begin to grow. Summers tend to be difficult as I dwell on tragedies in the past, like the passing of my mother, my divorce, the passing of my father and worst of all my marriage. In the summer I tend to go through periods of deep depression, and it’s not until I stop to think about my history that I realize the hidden reason. But spring is just fun. The weather is not stifling hot, and yet the dreadful cold is done. I have to cut the grass, quite often, actually, but at least I don’t have to shovel snow.
This year I’m hoping to put in a little garden and perhaps get my fence fixed. If I can put in two more gates, I could potentially get a dog. Wouldn’t Star love that?
Sarcasm doesn’t come across in written form.
My friend is off on a new venture. I’m honestly kind of jealous. She and her husband just purchased an ice-cream truck, and she will be the one to operate it. This will be an exciting time of re-birth for her as she settles into a new home-based career and learns about the business.
Spring is a time of love, or in my case, breaking up with somebody I’ve never even dated. Yes, in the absurdity that is my life, a week or two ago, I met this woman online through my social media dating app. We’ve been texting, and spoke once on the phone, but never met in person. Unfortunately, as we spoke, there were some red flags that came up that just seemed like issues that I didn’t need in a friend or otherwise.
For one thing, she seemed to already be talking with me about things as if we were, in fact, a couple. She criticized me for having female friends and was troubled that I don’t believe Christ is anything more than a profit. I don’t judge for beliefs such as this, but neither am I willing to listen to criticisms of my spirituality.
Now, I don’t want her to go on believing there is the potential for a relationship when I don’t believe there is, so I did tell her today that I didn’t see a future for us. For the past hour or two, I’ve been getting messages with little digs in them, as my spring brings to be the exact opposite of love.
Well, that’s what it means to be Bleil, I guess. Whatever it is that your spring has in store for you, I do hope that you have a great spring season. Whatever it is that you do to feel the seasonal rejuvenation in your life, I hope it’s terrific. I feel the need to get my cameras back out and once again resume my journey of photographic discovery. I have a habit, though, of remaining indoors too much. With luck, my friends will periodically help me to leave my house and adventure into the larger world around me. At the moment, though, I’m feeling very chilled and would simply be happy to be warm once again.
Bleil's Banter 