We are in early spring, suffering early spring. The day is overcast, having rained since 4 am when the thunderclap woke me. Now subsided to more of a mist, a robin is singing some song or other but he should have held his peace, for he is a false prophet. More raw than rain would suggest, spring dallies somewhere in the offing while snow mounds suffer its onslaught.

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I was reminded today that we’re changing from glove hunting season to umbrella hunting season. I could have sworn we had more than many. Where would I have put it so I could find it come spring?

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I have just returned, having knocked off walking somewhere north of 5 miles, my calves being as stiff as an old paint brush. All of the sedentary routine of winter paying its respects upon my frame. But I had to get out, between downpours, to reacquaint myself with the world beyond.

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It seems more difficult than previous to be one with nature in winter. I have hazy recollections of the peace and stillness that comes upon a snowstorm, when cross country skiing in the Kettle Moraine. Or the shear aliveness I remember when riding ice cakes down the river. My routine of shoveling first my driveway and then my father inlaw’s, a near record snow fall total this year, the pestering need to rake the heavy snow off the second story roof after first hauling an extension ladder through knee-deep snow, icy roads and teenage drivers under said roof all conspired to take the thrill out of the season.

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So, out I went and, between shivers, thought of last summer. (Can it only be 9 months since the heat wave last August? No one was saying it wasn’t hot, what with the windows stick, the glasses fog and the air smells of rot. Even the water bugs turned their feet up and lay on their backs, breathing heavily. 130 degrees in the shade, if memory serves. Ahh, the pleasures of family get-togethers, this time in Hilton Head, planned two years before. I wasn’t remembering the terrible discomfort of sticky shirts, perspiration racing from forehead to chin, or that certain chafing down lower. What I remembered was the warmth of early morning walks along the beach, lounging in the shallow end like frogs both mornings and afternoons, or after dark reunions with extended family alongside the pool.)

On my walk I found the first signs that spring is near. The pale green just now emerging from underneath the drab yellow of matted grass. Then I looked closer and saw a few green shoots of something thrusting out of mother earth. I admit I saw this because, due to my aching calves, I had slowed to a crawl. Then I stopped altogether. An unusually large bird I’d never seen before, with a black coat, small red head and throat, was looking down at me from its perch in the tree above. We stared at each other for a time, then it called out - ‘thock, thock, thock.’

The sound reverberated within me, and not just from the decibels.

I was greeted upon my return by a flock of red wing blackbirds conspiring in the three trees grouped to the side of our front door. All seemingly eager to twill their sweet melody at once, all confirming their joy in living this day, and all too quickly alighting as if one to spread their message down the lane.

On my walk this morning I witnessed a retriever defrocking a neighbor. It took hold of the woman’s overcoat belt that was flapping in the wind. A man had hold of the leash. It was something akin to a chain of preschoolers all holding hands at a crosswalk.

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The Beatles famous Eleanor Rigby’s poignant question “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” got me to thinking. Reflecting, I suppose.

For starters, I’m not an existentialist. They believed the lonely journey of the soul begins once the umbilical cord is cut and ends in death - and there is nothing to be done about it except to endure. To make as much sense as you can of life in between.

I’m quite opposed to this sense to life. Yet there are a lot of lonely people out there, and for quite a while I was one. My loss of the professional me became something of an ending. I retreated.

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“Always the struggle of the human soul is to break through the barriers of silence and distance into companionship. Friendship, lust, love, art, religion - we rush into them pleading, fighting, clamoring for the touch of spirit laid against our spirit.” (Don Marquis)

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Does anyone think loneliness is on the increase? In these modern times with text messaging and “social” sites predominating (at least for those on the younger end of things), the irony is an enormous, huge, seemingly insurmountable gulf of deep friendships where “you can think aloud.” Watching television, surfing the internet or reading are all reinforcing of self. It isn’t face-to-face contact. What’s more, it tends to perpetuate the feeling that it’s all happening out there, for others. It is putting the secondary and distant in front of the primary and near.

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The online community is such a strange box of chocolates, don’t you think? There’s a surprise in every single layer!

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Remember the classic tale of the truck caught under the overpass. The adults are all talking, trying to figure out how to get the truck unstuck. One suggests a tow truck, another thinks it’s obviously a matter of unloading the back. A little boy walks up, listens for a while, then asks: ‘Why don’t you just let the air out of the tires?’

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I imagine that when an existentialist looks up at the night sky they see something chilly, a revulsion of despair at the unfathomable emptiness of space.

For me, it’s all a wonder. I can feel a connectedness that eludes my eyes during daylight.

You can live your life in one of two ways: As if everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle.
Albert Einstein

I prefer to think that Eleanor Rigby was at peace with being alone, after reflection. For when she went out to look at the night sky, it replied.

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Take a walk, whether in the city or the country. Look at the brightly painted doors, church spires and shops, or at the wind playing in the grass, the cacophony of life humming around you - and feel the complexity of the small part of the world that your legs can carry you.

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(Note to self: Get a dog. Take a walk. The windier the better.)

Lewis Carroll’s White Rabbit was given some sage advice: “Where should I begin, please your Majesty” he asked. “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, gravely, “and go on till you come to the end, then stop.”

In the beginning there is free will. I am free to think and feel and be who I want to be. Do I want to feel abundance? Or scarcity?

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I can’t remember where I first read the following, but it popped into my head after a trying start this morning (more on this in a bit):

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In this space lies our freedom to decide how to fill it. In these choices lie our life.

I have decided that today I will find at least one moment with some stranger to perpetuate an act of kindness. Nothing major, just a simple little nothing.

I am not going to wait for a situation to present itself, such as holding a door or picking up a dropped set of keys. Nor can I recall the last time I saw an old lady trying to cross the street. (I live in somewhat open country, 5 acre minimum lot size, a land of SUV’s, soccer moms and absentee fathers, where the walking is done on treadmills in clubs, or dodging bicycles along the bike paths.)

Maybe I should step out of character, briefly. Walk into a place I’ve never been before. Many who think they know me think me orthodox, socially. They’ve seen nothing yet.

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“He can who thinks he can, and he can’t who thinks he can’t. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.”

Pablo Picasso

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I had started out this post with sentence after sentence of vivid word pictures of men and women, birds and bees, seasonal changes, statistical matter, delicious links and brisk passages designed to stimulate and exalt. The computer crashed. I was bushed before I got anywhere. Then Lewis Carrol came to the rescue.

With no backup but a plan, I’ll end this with 2:00 YouTube kindness: This is Charlie. Pay it forward.