Foggy Days

On a foggy, cool winter day in Washington like today, I want nothing more than to wake up with my room dark, light making the clouds pearly white, the roads wet and gleaming. The trees stained dark by the mist and standing out against the woolen sky, the lace of their branches the only decoration for the day. I want to drink a cup of tea and wear my old professor sweater (which the Pea still has) and gray socks. Then I want to ride the metro in the late morning, when everyone else has gone to work and I am alone, imagining the world as it might have been before I arrived. And walk along the soggy Mall until I get to the Hirshhorn, my favorite of DC art museums. Wandering around the art feeling like I'm with old friends. I remember discovering Calder for the first time in high school and the happiness his whimsical kinetic circus figurines brought. Picasso and his cubism, Lucien Freud and his beautifully ugly human bodies, David Smith and the way his rusted farm implement sculptures remind me of a William Carlos Williams poem. Then I would home and watch a favorite movie, or read a favorite book, with a cup of tea.

From my office window the skyline of the city is growing fainter, as though it is disappearing from the photograph, and the fog comes in 'on little cat feet.' Foggy days fill me with longing and anticipation. It's as though magic could happen in the shroud provided by the fog, and fairies might come out of the trees on days like this- so full of mist and mystery. I remember when I was younger and we were homeschooled, these sorts of days were saved for field trips that really did involve fields. They remind me of what it was like to be a child and be freed from the tyranny of classrooms for the holidays and explorations. Today is chilly enough to put roses in your cheeks but not so cold as to keep you from being outdoors. I don't like sitting in an office when the world is transformed by magic. I almost made a run for it and didn't go in, when I got on the shuttle that took me to work. It's hard having a job that you must go to everyday when things like foggy cities and art museums are calling out to you.

When I have children I will take them out of school on these sort of days and make sure that magic happens in the museums of natural history, or among the trees of the park.