Heaven on Earth (Part 1)

Heaven on Earth (Part 1)

By Frederick J. Blahnik

 

5-4-10.

Just left the dentist’s office on North Broadway. Absolute shithole, that fuckin’ place is. Verbally accosted once again by the resident ugly dental hygienist regarding her ultra-strict oral hygiene regimen. Fuck you, too, you deplorable wench!!! I have far more important things going on in my life right now than brushing my teeth for thirty minutes each and every day and restructuring my entire waking schedule just so it revolves exclusively around my molars and incisors and gums……

Stop down at Silver Lake for a routine circumnavigation. And as I begin walking.…..my anger, consternation, and worries begin to slowly slip away…….yes, slooooowly slip away…..…

NEW GOSLINGS!!!

This year’s goslings are here, as though by legerdemain and sorcery–six new families of them by my best count. They weren’t present on Sunday, just two days prior, when I made a similar trek around the man-made lake. Cute, adorable, fuzzy little goslings pattering about in the lakeside grass…….or swimming in teensy convoys with their proud parents leading the way out in the middle of the scenic body of water….…or just resting in lush foliage while their mothers busily forage for food……..

And I am a boy again, back when our Blahnik family used to raise Toulouse geese on our medieval farm north of Spring Valley and the arrival of goslings in late April and early May was like an unofficial passage into the exciting season of virgin life……

I continue walking, marveling at the tiny little fuzzballs dutifully chasing after their mothers, fuzzballs that just three days earlier were still encased in eggs before the enchanting call of nature mysteriously summoned them to hatch…..and to be alive today.

By the time I arrive back at my car–1.8 miles later if one is to believe the lakeside signage–my mood has changed dramatically. I look up, and the sky is a beautiful hue of blue punctuated only by a few rogue cirro-cumulus clouds racing to stay ahead of a doggedly pursuing but eternally frustrated zephyr. To my right a mother is pushing her daughter on an old-fashioned, towering steel swing-set, while the little girl beams and hollers excitedly as she flies ever higher. Just across the street from me a man is intently mowing his diminutive lawn, the raucous purring of his push mower not an unwelcome sound on the pregnant spring air. I glance once more at the gorgeous lake scarcely rippled by a brisk spring breeze, and take a deep, invigorating breath of fresh vernal oxygen.

5-4-10…….a good day to be alive indeed.  

After a bumpy start, life is good today!!!

But then again: Isn’t it always???