Yesterday…Shadows of tree trunks on the snow….

It has happened again. Sometime yesterday I lost my oomph, my punch, my vitality, my gusto, my enthusiasm. Hopefully it is simply misplaced and if I don’t panic I will find it.

In the afternoon I thought for a moment it had returned, only to discover it was just a caffeine overdose from a double shot of espresso masquerading as my vim and verve.

This has happened before and sometimes it isn’t so much I lost it as it connives with my zing to take a holiday. When this happens there isn’t much I can do but hibernate and wait. Sometimes, when it returns, it has a renewed sense of snappiness. I imagine it lounging on a beach in some delightfully warm latitude, soaking up the rays of a sun whose ambition it is to rejuvenate, and sipping a lovely fruity drink with chunks of pineapple and lots of maraschino cherries served in a frosted glass and adorned with those marvelous tropical drink umbrellas.

After these kinds of sojourns from me my oomph has been known to return with a delightful vibrancy and make me jump up and do a jig, the kind where I snap my fingers and dance in triple time. When that happens I am grateful.

Other times my oomph comes slinking back like an old dilapidated jalopy that has traveled hard and is low on gas.

Even though I wish it had come back like a souped up roadster, maybe a bright red XKE Jag, I am always glad it’s back and not crashed on some lonely mountain road over a cliff, lost to me forever.

I have a couple of ideas where I might have lost it yesterday morning and I think it is worth revisiting those places where snow covered the hillsides and cold creeks babbled though the woods and the world was magical, the sunrise casting soft pink onto the banks of snow. That was before I arrived at my job substitute teaching classes of miscreants with no desire to learn. If I don’t find it there I will assume it has indeed escaped for a respite from the short days and long cold nights and I will go back to my boat and sleep.