Summer's Day

I rise - unbidden by alarm-of-clock, which lies quiescent on my dresser, set for a time later than this - and greet the day.

It is summer, in southern California, sufficiently distant from the hazes of the City of Angels for nature's charms to freely expose themselves. The birds chirp, tweet, and twitter, somewhere in the green-leaved trees. The sun shines golden-bright, her majesty somewhat concealed by a thin layer of cloud, which turns her light into a broad, diffuse glow; still too strong a radiance to observe directly. Even the air possesses a pleasant character, smelling somewhat of flowers; except in that stairway, which reeks (as ever) of the ever-present cigarette.

(Is it some constant in the character of the cigarette-man which renders him so very slobbish - even when an ash-tray stands just feet away, in plain view? Or is it that they are no more slobbish than other men, but simply given more opportunity to indulge in their character flaws?

(The latter appeals more strongly to me, suggesting agreement with what I know of the nature of Man; but observing the sheer volume of cigarettes lying scattered there, it is very difficult to believe.)

Cigarettes aside, I was - am - moved by the day. I look upwards, at the pale blue sky, and to myself am uncontrollably compelled to whisper, "How beautiful - how beautiful - how beautiful!" (Though, in this case, without the more regrettable consequences implied by that context.)

So why do I sit here, in the half-lit bowels of the computery-realm, staring through portholes at the sunlight instead of living within it?

Beats me.