Every Once in a While It's Just Perfect

Yesterday I felt like a lead weight was hanging from my neck. I got up at 5 AM, as per normal, and by 9 hadn't accomplished anything. I mean anything. Couldn't get myself to do the dishes from Friday night, couldn't handle the trash, the growing pile of clothes in front of the washing machine. By noon it was no better. There was a moment of motion in the early afternoon when I took my daughter Madeleina to a party, then continued on to buy food for the house and a couple of miniature Jim Beam's for me, but it didn't last long. Just felt slow, old and weak. Hated myself but couldn't break out. Had a few interviews to do for a story on the recent paraphernalia busts in the US and Canada but couldn't even get those done.
And what I did do was done with no joy, no life, no wonder.
And then there is today.
Whole different ball game.
Got up, made my coffee and began to wash, dry and fold two loads of laundry. While that was happening I scrubbed the dishes from last night's meal, cleaned the kitchen, fed the dogs, cat and goats, took a walk in the perfect sun out across the creek in our back yard. Listened to the cardinals that are waiting for their eggs to hatch, put some bird food in the feeders, then came in and made breakfast for Madeleina, her sleep-over friend Shelby and my son Italo: Fresh strawberry, banana, orange juice mix with just a touch of milk; some bacon and scrambled eggs, toasted bagels with no-fat cream cheese (you got to draw the line somewhere, eh?). Read three newspapers on the net, Bill Weinberg's fantastic account of the life and death of Tom Forcade (www.ww4report.com), fixed the drain in the bathroom sink, picked up in the living room and did all of it with absolute and sweet joy.
And it's still not noon.
Man, I love days that start this way. I need them. I feel like me today, a pumped up dad who handles his responsibilities effortlessly, without griping.
So what happened yesterday?
Who knows.
But I'm gonna tell you, I'm glad it's today today.
Maybe it's just cause it's April and I get to go to the Amazon in two weeks for a couple of weeks. Get back down to the thick thick green. A day like today I wish I was going for a major expedition, setting off into that river system on my boat, all loaded up with a month worth of supplies, headed off to start a new adventure.
Won't happen this trip. But today, it sure feels like it could.