Doing it Wrong

Sproing

I think spring has sprung.

I'm probably premature in saying so, particularly given the fact that I was sure spring had sprung a few weeks ago when the snowdrops were all out and the temperature was in the double [centigrade] digits. And then all last week we had bitter cold, snow, graupel and a biting, bloody awful wind.

However, it's warm today. The forsythia by the bridge not only has buds, it has at least four blossoms, the crocuses are blooming, the jonquils hot behind, and the floods of daffodils at the base of the city wall are raring to go.

A pair of ducks were in the garden outside my flat clearly on the market for a cozy little property, short commute, room for a family. There are thousands and thousands of birds all twittering 'I'M SEXY! I'M TOTALLY SEXY!' in a variety of, generally charming, themes. Well, charming except for the geese. The goose for 'I'M SEXY' is basically shouting 'BAWACKA!! BAWACKA!!' at full volume. Often very early in the morning. Very.

But as the old saying goes, when the geese shout BAWACKA, you know that spring has sprung.

Ghost

I saw a ghost the other day.

I don't believe in ghosts.

I wasn't going to write about it, but it happened and as I think about it, some of the time I think it's important, so I'll put this here - placeholder. This happened.

I was walking at my usual clip down my street onI the way to class. It wasn't terribly early in the morning. The sun was well up, it was light, although the usual amount of mist in the air made everything a bit softer than I was used to from the desert, although now I hardly notice. Cars were going by; the seagulls had found something off the quay and were screaming about it. It wasn't an evocative moment, is what I'm saying, it wasn't that my senses were keyed up or that there was a feeling of something in the air.

And the man walking towards me was Kirk.

I don't mean he looked like Kirk or reminded me of him, he was him, just for a moment - hardly a breath I think. And immediately he wasn't. Nothing like him of course - not in height or build or age or colouring. Nothing. Stranger. But he had been Kirk in a total and absolute way that I can't explain.

The thing is that since I've gotten here, Kirk hasn't been as present to me as in all the years before. That's the wrong word... what I mean is that before, I had been carrying him with me, always, everywhere, not as a memory, but as something I could not put down. It was a very good thing sometimes, that burden, because I did - do - love him so very, very much, and even carrying him in grief and pain was better than not having him at all. But I was tired, bone tired and so when I found that - god knows why - I was not carrying him with me here I felt enormous relief. And, which I never thought possible, there was no guilt with that relief, which was the biggest relief of all.

So why did my brain turn a stranger on the street into Kirk that morning?

I don't know. I had been thinking of him the night before, yes, as I often do, and that night I had been sad. Maybe that was it.

All I know is that I saw a ghost.