Somethings that get left behind...

           It's Sunday, and man what a great past couple of days. For those of you who don't live under a grey blanket of clouds for 2/3 of the year, you may not understand what makes these last few days particularly great... IT'S THE SUN FOLKS!... In the Spring here, we all kinda pull ourselves out of a bit of seasonal funk that comes with the grey rainy Falls/Winters. People start to appear, seemingly from nowhere, all over town. Walkers, bikers, skaters, hippies, gutter punks; everyone's on the move, out enjoying the sunshine and the mild Spring that the Pacific Northwest is infamous for. We all know you gotta get out while the gettings good. After all, you never know when the next soul-sucking deluge will come, or how long it'll last. With the sun comes a time to make projects for the summer, before it becomes so hot all you really want to do is be encased in a 360 degree fan whirlwind whilst draping yourself in ice packs.
            This weather stirs a few things in me that only manifest this time of year. As the streets dry out, and the people start to come out of the woodwork, I begin to see 'skate spots'. It kinda makes me sad, cause I'm hella out of shape, and I haven't been a regular skate 'sesh' guy for a few years. It's weird how some things in your life take the front seat and sometimes the stuff you always used to get out and do wallows in the back. I miss skating, and it's really my best intention to get back on the horse (so to speak) and in decent enough shape to not be a total fool out there riding my board. But, you know what they say about good intentions.
           Besides, its a bit of a trade for me. In exchange for the skating (which I was never really stellar at any way), I've been busting my ass creating artwork for myself, other fellow writers, freelance clientele, etc...and it's starting to approach a whole new plateau of awesomeness.  Both activities are fulfilling in different ways, but I'm not ashamed to admit, I'll stay home and draw over skating most days (man that makes me sound like a lazy-ass). So yeah, I miss skating, but the trade off hasn't been a bad one.
           Also, when the nice weather starts to rear its head around here, the other feeling that begins to manifest is an insatiable urge to throw a bunch of clothes in a backpack, pack up the sleeping bag, and go on a nice long road trip. Summers were my migration times not long ago, when I lived and went to school in Savannah, Georgia, yet my family and friends were scattered between my home town, Casper, Wyoming, and my adopted home 2 hours away in Eugene, Oregon. I'd make the trek out from the southeast coast every summer and split my time between Wyoming and Oregon.
            Needless to say, I'm no stranger to long road trips, and there's something about that time watching the lines of the road whisk by that is meditative, cleansing.  It's also helped in terms of building patience. A commodity very useful when working on personal /professional graphic projects. The nice thing about this feeling is it can be sated by getting out for short excursions. It's not like skating, it's not something sacrificed for the time required to do something else. But it's still a bit of a tease to hit the road for only 2 hours, when all you'd really like to be doing is driving through the night waiting for the sun to come up. I guess we can't have everything, right? But I can try...
             I love this time of year. It's time to clean stuff out of your house. Time to take a bag or two of forgotten clothes to Goodwill. It's time to prioritize, minimize, and organize. Because when you've cleaned out all those nooks and crannies, and swept the cobwebs out of untended corners, you won't feel so trapped next time old man winter comes creepin' around the bend...and...somehow your winters don't turn out quite so grey. Enjoy the sunshine, my friends...

Daniel DePaolo