Friday, March 7, 2008

Spring Is Coming, I Know It

Guess what? I'm better! And what's more, spring is just around the corner. That brings us to today's quote from Moby Dick:

"For, as when the red-cheeked dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile."

I really love Melville's metaphors. Later on he describes Captain Ahab as hibernating within himself, like a bear in a hollow tree, sucking on the "sullen paws of its gloom." It's beautiful.

Well, the red-cheeked dancing girls April and May have not quite arrived in New York yet. Instead we have their sister March, more of a manic-depressive tease. One days it's sunny and warmish, the next is rainy and chill. Oh well, at least we are seeing the light at the end of winter's tunnel. And, best of all, I have the sunny South to look forward to. Every day I check the weather of Charleston and Chapel Hill and smile thinking about the time I'm going to soon spend sitting in sunbeams.

No comments: