It's Not Easy Seeing Green

I need something to remind me to get up and smell the roses—not just figuratively but literally, too.  Oddly, my iphone doesn’t have an app for that! 

Functionally, I imagine an app that senses when my iphone has been sitting idly on its back in close proximity to my laptop for over four hours.  It then needs to emit an increasingly obnoxious series of prompts, taunts, and admonishments designed to get me out of my chair and into the sunshine.  An advanced version of this app could monitor my profoundly depleted levels of Vitamin D while playing an assortment of electronically-generated “sunshine songs.”  This would includ “Here Comes the Sun,” “You Are My Sunshine,” and “Let The Sunshine In.”   The tones would play faster and louder until driving me, half-crazed from my vampire-approved workspace.  There would be no off switch for this app; it would rely on an embedded solar panel to register that I have truly moved outdoors.  Once outside, it would activate the locks on my house, keeping me away from my work for at least an hour.  In the case of user violation, the app would wirelessly activate an applet on my laptop that would wipe my hard-drive clean.

Today, just for fun, I began my day at the local farm rather than at the computer.  I decided to further break my routine by driving beyond the town line to neighboring towns in order to procure some necessities and complete my list of errands.  For the first time in weeks I ventured beyond my daily “groove,” which forced me to look around.  It is then I realized what I had been missing. 

Without notice, the town around me exploded with the most lush and verdant display of nature.  It is unlike anything I have seen in recent years.  I do not know when it happened.  I am still dressing in layers, unable to venture out without at least a sweater.  Here it is late in May, but calendar dates mean almost nothing in New England—especially the last few years as weather patterns shifted dramatically.  We had almost no snow this past winter, many of us fearing that we would face a blighted spring and a droughted summer.  Instead, rich green boughs overhang the roads, the branches bursting with tightly sprouted leaves.  Everywhere you turn, rhododendrons are in bloom, popping against the emerald foliage in bursts of pink, white and violet.  It is a glorious site to behold. 

I pride myself on being a highly productive person, able to multi-task and juggle with enviable skill.  To my detriment, I forgot to put “look around” on my daily to-do list.   Today I did, and it made all the difference.

Today's blog:  It's a Good Time for a Schmear