it is THAT TIME of year
when you wake up because sunlight and springtime blueness is slanting in thick golden columns through your curtains
(and eyelids)
and you can drag a sunchair out into the back garden
and read social histories and theories of slavery, shading the sunglare with one hand
and break for smoked salmon and avocado sandwiches and the gleeful brand of pleasure associated with cold silky chablis at noon
and think how cruel everything is not, even if there are lilacs bursting out of the grass
and watch the travelling skies between chapters, all blue and rough white-streaked with cirrus
and be startled by the sudden furious beating of wings as a lark swarm erupts from the hedge
and ruminate on the meaning of modernity, squinting into the late afternoon, one hand prudently holding down the thick sheaf of notes against the wind that has suddenly whipped in from the south
or at least, it is that time of year for me, with the ecstatic spring hovering on the corner
and my friend john put it best when he said this morning that it was monday and we were not a) in an office or b) suicidal
which is more than I might once have hoped for
even if I did not love being a historian
even if I did not adore untangling the past from a deckchair, or at least an armchair, or at least a beanbag
even if, cycling home as the sun set, I was not as ecstatic as the spring itself
and even if there were no white flowerbuds on the boughs of the tree outside my bedroom window, curled like tiny fists, waiting to unfurl into april.