Tuesday, February 20, 2007
A Beautiful Day
I should not complain about the weather in Mobile during the winter. There is no ice, people don't die of hypothermia or have to have fingers and toes removed after being beaten by teenagers and left outside overnight. It's windy, and it gets down into the twenties at times, and once it snowed, and that's about it.
But there's something about spring here that makes it better than spring anywhere else I've lived. For one, the Japanese magnolias, one of the mose beautiful flowering trees I've ever seen, bloom in February and in March the petals start to fall in a two-week-long shower of pink and white that is unearthly, it makes you feel like you're living in a movie or a snowglobe. For another, spring wakes up a certain smell in Mobile, the smell of old buildings and trees, an authentic smell of time. Some might call it mold, but I call it history.
I've been spending a lot of time walking around Mobile lately, partly because of a bet I have going with my boss that I can lose more weight than he can in fifteen weeks (I'm winning, by the way), but also because I know that my time in Mobile is limited, and I'll never live here again once I leave, I'll only be a tourist. It seems only fair to the city that I figure some of it out, see some new things, before I go away to places that are not normally described as "throwbacks" or "backwaters".
Today is Mardi Gras, and as I walked toward downtown, I started to see families camped out in the parking lots of closed banks, grilling burgers and sausages and wearing t-shirts in purple, green, and yellow, not a good color combo unless you're The Joker. Girls with batons walked together away from the parade routes, their duty done.
People were collectively trying to be happy, and that's always a nice thing to see. It shows perserverance in the face of great odds, and that, with the help of beer and grilled meat, we can forget our problems for a few hours and put on a damn fine parade. Plus, there are moonpies to be thrown, caught, and eaten like bounty from the gods.
Add this to a sunshiny morning on which it is possible to wear a t-shirt for the first time in months, and things feel pretty good.
But there's something about spring here that makes it better than spring anywhere else I've lived. For one, the Japanese magnolias, one of the mose beautiful flowering trees I've ever seen, bloom in February and in March the petals start to fall in a two-week-long shower of pink and white that is unearthly, it makes you feel like you're living in a movie or a snowglobe. For another, spring wakes up a certain smell in Mobile, the smell of old buildings and trees, an authentic smell of time. Some might call it mold, but I call it history.
I've been spending a lot of time walking around Mobile lately, partly because of a bet I have going with my boss that I can lose more weight than he can in fifteen weeks (I'm winning, by the way), but also because I know that my time in Mobile is limited, and I'll never live here again once I leave, I'll only be a tourist. It seems only fair to the city that I figure some of it out, see some new things, before I go away to places that are not normally described as "throwbacks" or "backwaters".
Today is Mardi Gras, and as I walked toward downtown, I started to see families camped out in the parking lots of closed banks, grilling burgers and sausages and wearing t-shirts in purple, green, and yellow, not a good color combo unless you're The Joker. Girls with batons walked together away from the parade routes, their duty done.
People were collectively trying to be happy, and that's always a nice thing to see. It shows perserverance in the face of great odds, and that, with the help of beer and grilled meat, we can forget our problems for a few hours and put on a damn fine parade. Plus, there are moonpies to be thrown, caught, and eaten like bounty from the gods.
Add this to a sunshiny morning on which it is possible to wear a t-shirt for the first time in months, and things feel pretty good.
