A Grand Day Out

There are very few days like that.

It’s not that I don’t see them. I see them all day, every day. But there is too little time for nothing. There is almost no nothing in a week. I take them to the lumber yards and the hardware stores and everywhere else I go, which is almost nowhere, but that’s always about something. Kids need nothing sometimes. Not alone nothing. Together nothing.

Doing nothing comes like an inspiration once in a while. Not exactly “I could do nothing.” More like “I should do nothing.” I look at the world and wonder where everyone gets the time and money to do nothing so furiously all day. Oh how they squander their nothing. Not dolce far niente. They smother their nothing in the cradle with activities. They drive nowhere while typing with their thumbs like they’re the leader of some great enterprise. They know in their hearts that to be left alone with their thoughts for a moment would expose a great void, and so fill the hole with endless distractions.

Me? The snow is in remission, trickling away into the river and then the sea, soon to come back to fall on our heads again one way or the other. There’s a road around the corner quiet enough to teach the eight-year-old, finally, how to ride a bike.

There aren’t ten days in a lifetime like Sunday was. After an hour he was racing the other kids, and losing with a big smile on his face. Almost as big as his old man’s.