Green Shoots and Scent Glands

"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming."

-Pablo Neruda

I missed yesterday's post. Thursdays have become my most difficult point on the calendar--the midday class is among the most challenging, with a couple hundred pages of reading a week. By Thursday my paying work has piled up, as has my homework, to the point that from the moment I roll out of bed I'm hustling to get everything done so we can drive back to Corning after class. It doesn't leave much time for anything else.

The notion of slowing to half-time work is starting to face headwinds; the rest of the world hasn't tapered off, not at all, and everyone expects work product or a response immediately in this digital world. I guess I'm the only one who can control that, and should maybe start turning away more cases or letting the problem children go to help me regain control of this ship.

That, and getting a decent practice management software. I hold a couple dozen deadlines and tasks in my muddled old head at any given time, and am up at 3 a.m. emailing myself so I don't forget some obligation that sank to the bottom of my mental in-basket.

And my knee, good gracious, my knee. The pain is intense, and getting worse. I awaken several times a night when rolling over gives me a quick jolt of ouch, and I'm sleeping with a pillow wedged between my knees to keep the one from touching the other and jolting me back into consciousness.

I have a doctor's appointment today to discuss, but that's about all we'll be able to do. Then comes another MRI, after a couple weeks of waiting for the insurer to approve. Then, if I was a betting man, another trip through the surgical suite to fix it again. Then several weeks of limited mobility.

Then our Manhattan adventure will be pretty much over. Peg's hope for a magical trip with lots of walking tours, museums, and adventures that require a functioning knee gone up in smoke, maybe the last time we'll be healthy and financially comfortable enough for this exercise. A cruel twist of fate, that one.

We walked into Grace Episcopal Church on Broadway in Manhattan for the Ash Wednesday service, and took our places at the post-Communion prayer because the noon service was just ending and they'd decided to cancel the scheduled hourly service for imposition of ashes we'd come to attend at one. They ashed our forehead all the same, along with everyone who'd been there through the whole noon eucharist, but it all had a certain drive-through quality that left us feeling a little cheated. Still, we're on the pilgrim's path for thirty-eight more days, and trying to re-set those spiritual gyros that have crusted over from neglect during the last couple years.

Meanwhile, on the larger front there seems reason for hope. Over the last couple nights on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, we've met James Talarico and Jon Ossoff, one a Texas senatorial candidate and the other Georgia's senator, the youngest in that mostly geriatric body. I find their demeanor and message reassuring--it feels like they've memorized the Pete Buttigieg playbook, both well-spoken and measured in their message that's filled with optimism that this death ship on which we find ourselves can be turned. If the Democratic Party puts up a slate of folks like these, and we're allowed to vote, November could be a watershed.

And in Illinois, Governor Pritzker gave a barnburner of a state of the state speech, a message about the resilience of the American people and our institutions in the face of an existential, demagogue threat, and how our better angels have emerged when we've been in similar straits in the past. You can read the whole thing here.

https://www.nprillinois.org/government-politics/2026-02-18/read-gov-pritzkers-state-of-the-state-and-budget-address

And my benighted neighbors who made all this possible by voting a monster into office are beginning to show signs of a Road to Damascus moment, at least for some. When the polls show a large plurality of R voters don't have an opinion on whether Trump carries a basket of attributes that would generally cast him as evil, that tells me they're planning to stay home in the fall. No one's going to admit they were wrong, especially on that side of the aisle where they think metanoia is a salve you rub on your hemorrhoids. The best you'll here is that they have no opinion on him whatsoever. And that, my friend, is progress.

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So there's hope, for the first time since that awful morning in Athens in November when we learned our country had gone mad while we were on holiday.

In the Southern Tier this morning, spring is in the air. It's already above freezing, the brief flurries didn't stick and temperatures should be mostly in the mid-40s for the next week.

We've both smelled skunks since getting back here last night, a sure sign that critters are beginning to move and starting to look for a little lovin'.

The days are getting longer. The Braves play their first spring training game against the Rays tomorrow afternoon. All very good, but for this damned knee.