Spring

Even when it's not raining upstate one must wear a coat outdoors for all but a few hours in the early afternoon—it's still that chilly and  it feels colder when wet. This is the time of year of mud.  The  Spring rain makes a boot sucking mud of the recently thawed soil,

April is the cruellest month, breeding    
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing    
Memory and desire, stirring    
Dull roots with spring rain.

The Wasteland T. S. Eliot, 1922

It was Saturday. New Yorkers do not know mud; the city is paved and there are cement sidewalks to stroll upon. Before driving to Manhattan, I put on my Blundstones and looked down to see semi-dried mud caked on them. It was 5:30 AM, it was too late to wash my boots: my feet would be wet during the cold morning hours.  Instead I would take the farm with me to the city on the soles of my boots.  I was going there to sell, to see and not to be seen, I told myself.

And I should do something other than hang out  at the stand in Union Square as I usually do.  I have competent sales help at market; they really don't need me there.  Maybe I should take in a Chelsea gallery or two, see an exposition at one of the uptown museums or even go to a downtown movie, one that will never play upstate...I brought The New Yorker along to see with what kind of city idyll "Goings On About Town" could tempt me.