Occam's Razor

I posted on Facebook yesterday that there is a God because he/she/it gave us the perfect day yesterday. My crazy cousin Ken chimed in, “What about the crap days? Does that mean there is a Satan?” My response: “Either that or God is a schizophrenic.”

Whatever. When a perfect day comes along, you have to be outside so by midmorning I found my excuse to stop working (I was working from home) and walk through the neighborhood. The humidity was low. The skies were nearly clear with a deep shade of blue. There were pockets of puffed cumulus clouds here and there. The winds were moderate but not brisk allowing sweat, if there were to be any, to swiftly disappear. This has been a late spring for us, with a winter that seemed to refuse to quit. Usually by the end of May it feels pretty much like summer here in Northern Virginia. But yesterday and today as well, it feels very much like the perfect spring day I’ve always wanted but so rarely get around here.

The leaves are all out now, largely untouched by acid rain. There has been so much rain these last six weeks that the grass is thick and lush. The lawnmowers have been kept very busy. The highway department simply can’t keep up with the mowing. Most medians have grass nearly two feet high, in some cases blocking the views of incoming traffic. Many of the streambeds are eroded from all the rain, but the rain has subsided enough where nearby Horsepen Run Stream Valley Park was down to running gently, with just a ripple of current on its surface. Strangers on the path smiled and nodded as I passed them. Walking was invigorating. It was one of those days that you realize that makes up for all those other sub-optimal days. If every day could be like yesterday, I would be a happy man. In fact, it would be paradise.

Except, as I suggested on Facebook, God has a schizophrenic nature. Most days in Los Angeles are sunny and clear, perhaps with a heaping of haze and ozone, so how could they be that special? Here in Northern Virginia we tend to get real weather, in that it tends to change a lot. Summer is generally the exception. During the summer it tends to stay unremittingly hot and humid, sometimes dangerously so. Some weeks you don’t care venture outside because the air quality is so poor. There are times during July that you want to move to Miami to escape the heat. You wonder why we don’t have palm trees. Fortunately that season tends to last roughly two months: July and August. May and June tend to feel on the edge of summer, with many days drifting into summer. Our unusual winter though also produced an unusual spring that started later and reminded me of springs I knew when I lived in upstate New York. If the weather could reliably be like this during the spring I’d be happy not to move to more northern latitudes.

Perfect days are ephemeral and thus must be appreciated, and I certainly appreciated it yesterday. Even the pollen count was down, with just a tiny sheen of pollen on my windshield in the morning. It was a day to open the windows and feel connected to the planet. It meant hearing the wind for a change, the feet of the bird scampering across the roof of our deck as well as more manmade noises like airplanes taking flight from Dulles Airport a few miles to our west. It meant smelling the air, and the air was laced with a mixed floral scent that was intoxicating.

Yes, God probably is a schizophrenic, as our weather is such a mixed bag, much of it not optimal and most of it downright annoying. No wonder we tend to prefer to be inside. We get it all from 104 degree heat with killer air pollution to -1 degree bone chilling extreme winter days. We get tornadoes, regular thunderstorms (often severe) from spring through the fall, and sometimes in the winter. We even get hurricanes although by the time they make it this far inland they are usually downgraded to tropical storms, and the damage is usually from water instead of wind. God tends to be most destructive by hurling lines of thunderstorms at us, occasionally with a tornado or two thrown in. It brings down power lines, puts people in the dark and shuts off their air conditioning. God likes to tease us with snowstorms that usually devolve into snow showers that don’t even stick to the pavement. For humor every few years he will throw a massive snowstorm at us that will bury us in two or more feet of snow, sometimes back to back. If you live in the mid Atlantic area, change is likely to be your only constant weather pattern. The weather rarely stays the same for long, except in July and August, which simply must be endured, largely indoors. The more sanguine of us, particularly in neighborhoods where power lines are not buried underground, keep generators and ten gallons of gasoline in reserve to get through power outages. We Washingtonians really resent being uncomfortable.

But happily there are still days like yesterday when God gives you a delicious respite and reveals his majesty. You must take these days when they are given and spend them to the extent you can outside. You must give into its sensuality, knowing it will be short-lived. Find a shady spot under a tree facing into the wind, close your eyes and feel the steady wind course through your nostrils. Feel such an intimate tactile, olfactory and aural connection with your planet. Feel it, hold it in your memory and come back to it often on those days when nature is not so beneficent. It’s why it is good to be alive.