By Bruce Levine

Spring was officially the season. The Spring Equinox had taken place on March twentieth, and it was now close to the end of April. But for Gary Sounding spring was never truly spring until he’d seen robins prancing around and the lawn getting its first cutting. There was no special significance to the lawn being cut, but, to Gary, he placed its own significance, almost as if it were some sort of rite of passage between winter and spring. And lately he’d noticed, as he walked his dog, that the grass had grown significantly. He’d even mentioned it to his wife.

This morning he’d awakened to the sound of lawn mowers traversing the property and he smiled. He actually smiled for two reasons: one because of the fact that, to him, it was now spring, but even more importantly, that there was an entire crew of landscapers speedily riding around and he had nothing to do but watch and wait for them to finish. That was one of the many things he liked about living in a rental apartment, he had nothing to do with any sort of maintenance.

There were many things Gary liked about where he lived. He liked his actual apartment, and he liked the surrounding area and the convenience of everything he needed, but a high priority to Gary was not having to do anything relating to maintaining the apartment itself or the grounds.

It wasn’t that Gary was lazy, far from it. His days were filled to the point that he needed an agenda to complete as much as possible, but he always felt that his living accommodations should be as free from any form of encumbrance as possible. He didn’t want to own anything, and he didn’t want to maintain anything.

When he moved into his current apartment a year before he felt that he had found an ideal combination of all elements for his living environment.

Yes, he thought, as he listened to the lawn mowers moving rapidly across the lawn behind his balcony, spring is here, and life is good.