It’s getting warmer outside, meaning students start spawning outdoors again, and a very common spawn zone is … the cornhole boards. I see that people no longer rub their puffer-coat-covered arms together as they briskly walk into the next building with an active heater. 

Their arms are now free from the puff, and they engage in the spring and summer act of throwing small bags into boards with holes in them. Cornhole. It’s back. The sport (is cornhole a sport?) that anyone can play, no sweat at all, except from the springtime sun and no athletic abilities required. Except me. I can’t play cornhole. Or anything. I can’t aim. I’m so serious, I’ve only ever gotten bags in, like, five times.

I’m seeing a lot more little dogs out, too, walking with their humans, whether they’re strutting along campus or across Monocacy Creek. More dogs, more people – everyone’s out now, because the weather is deemed bearable. 

We’re at that point where groups of people are running around shirtless and in shorts, because it’s hot and bright enough outside that you can get away with it, but not hot enough to get a massive sunburn on your back. But those days are coming, and I dread them …

SIGHTSEEING LITTLE FLOWERS?!

As someone who works in an archive, I find myself coming across numerous chonky books full of poems about springtime, in which way too many types of flowers are referenced and praised. It’s ridiculous. The number of books with poems like this inside them is sheer. 

And you see, they’re full of this colorful language with fifteen different adjectives before each flower noun. I have been unexposed to any blooms of late, so I haven’t felt the need to glorify flowers with such verbosity in recent times. 

But! Spring has arrived, and I’m finally seeing so many cute little flowers popping up around campus, and now I can see why the early Moravian students and scholars felt so compelled to write an insane amount of poetry about them.

My personal favorites have to be the small purple sprouts. I don’t know what they are, but man, I love purple. But you know what I’m not excited about? Daffodils. They’re everywhere. I get excited to see a flower, and it’s another stupid daffodil, and I’m so sick of seeing them everywhere. 

THE SWEET EMBRACE OF HAMMOCKS.

Do you ever yearn for a gentle, floating bed of string? One that may gently sway in the wind, provide adequate space for napping, and give a wonderful view of tree branches? Hammocks are your answer. 

Hammocks … something I was so cruelly deprived of during the winter months at Moravian … in which the choicest of hanging beds were unfairly plucked from campus grounds. My body was robbed of stringy, supine comfort … where would I go to crash for several hours after field trips, walks in the woods, and the occurrence of discouraging events in class? 

Hammocks! My answer was hammocks;, it always was and always will be. But for some unspeakable reason, hammocks are torn away come winter! But enough lamentation – spring has arrived, and with it, the hammocks. 

Again, will the poor fatigued souls of Moravian University be able to rest in the ideal venue: the sweet cradle of the hammock! Once more, we will return to the hammock’s gentle hold and nestle ourselves in its embrace. 

I praise you, hammocks, for restoring balance to the breathing spaces of Moravian University. I praise you for being the perfect place to rest, laze about, unwind, and ultimately slumber.