I got up this morning and after sitting around until this afternoon, I decided I could not let a day as nice as today go by without going outside, as crappy as I feel right now (which will be explained in a subsequent post).
It was 70 degrees outside and sunny, and I looked at the forecast and saw that these conditions would not be recurring for some time, probably until about May. Days like today, however, reminded me of some of the reasons I like Chicago.
I went for an almost 2-hour walk down by Lake Michigan, which I live about four blocks from. The Lake was just spectacular today. On certain bright, clear days, Lake Michigan looks like the damn Carribean. I would have gotten in had the water been warmer than about 45 degrees.
Still, I got to walk on the beach with the wind going through my hair on a tourist-brochure perfect day…and I never have to worry about hurricanes, crabs, jellyfish, or any of the other things that usually drive me nuts about the beach. Frostbite, maybe. But not the rest.
Anyway, one thing I realized after my walk was that I forgot how much just going out on a nice day can make you feel better. It cleared my head, made me forget about all the shit that’s been hitting the fan in my life and in the world in general.
Sometimes you run across song lyrics you initially think are inconsequential or silly but later realize that they make a whole lot more sense than you gave them credit for. I give you the closing lines from U2’s “Beautiful Day”:
What you don’t have you don’t need it now,
Don’t need it now
It was a beautiful day…
And really, I see an absurd profundity in that set of lines that maybe wasn’t even there when they were written. On a beautiful day, you can ignore that you’re not happy about a lot of shit, because you realize you don’t need it.
Maybe I’m just loony and/or misinterpreting. But the way I felt this afternoon, free of everything that weighed on me, made me think of those lines in a different light.
Sometimes I just wish things weren’t so fucked up right now, and I could keep this feeling even on days where the weather sucks.