Place Entry 4 A little Squishy

I finally got what I wanted, but not exactly.  The snow that covered substantial patches of my yard while I ate breakfast this morning was gone by the time I got home from work. Seeing the brown grass fully exposed, I immediately thought of the dry grass around Scotland in the winter and grabbed a gold club from my trunk and marched or rather to suctioned steps up throw my backyard, dodging the doggy landmines that had for so long lain hidden beneath the snow.

It was a reverse mirage where I saw a dry and arid landscape and my mind fooled me with hopefulness, I instead brown speckles creeping up the back of my khakis, but did that stop me?  Hell no! A junkie, especially a golf junkie, knows no bounds, besides it's nothing a little stain stick and a Tide pen can't fix right?

I squished my way to the middle of the yard and enjoyed the soggy blankness.  At this point, anything was better than the expansive white misery.  The 61 degree whether felt like a bit of a tease with so much wetness, but it felt good to be outside.  A gathered a few of the balls that were scattered around the yard and started hitting pitch shots up and down the yard.

I only wore a t-shirt and a pair of dockers and I couldn't have been happier.  My boss asked me the other day if I knew what state I live in when I was complaining about the cold whether.  I told him I never knew any other state, I've never been able to officially call anywhere else home but with the forecast, I can be a little hopeful.  I'd played golf in hip waiters if I have to, but come hell or high water, I can feel that gold bug building as the neighborhood seems to come to life around me.  Golf balls pop up in the and splatter 30 yards from me.

Dogs are chasing each other in a fenced in yard a couple houses over and on the street behind my I can make out the subtle pock sound of a baseball hitting a catcher's mitt.  My neighbor plays college ball and must have come home for dinner or to have a catch with his dad but either way I can see a change in my mood as everything I love in the natural world is coming back into bloom even if it's temporary.

I chase the most recent round of golf balls to the other end of the yard and switch to hitting flop shots until I dig too deep sending a huge chunk of real estate down the yard and splattering my forehead and nose with a little much.  Even the earth smells fresh.  It's been trapped in the ice that it doesn't even smell like I remembered.  Everything is new again and the world has potential.  It has diversity, and as I round up my golf balls and head back to my trunk to put my club back in my bag, I see them.

They're faint but unmistakeable. I may not hunt, like so many other people in central Pa, but I know deer tracks when I see them.  I reach down to touch the compress ground.  A certain firmness among the sludge and I can't help but wonder what else I missed today.