A Mood Captured

At present, one of the books that I'm reading is The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. There was a passage that I just had to share. He perfectly captures the mood and physical sensation, of lazing in the sun on a bench in the right kind of summer weather, with or without a book.

"The benches were white iron, roomy enough for three or four old gaffers to snooze on in the swamp-tasting sweet warmth that made the redwing blackbirds fierce and quick, and the flowers frill, but other living things slow and lazy-blooded. I soaked in the heavy nourishing air and this befriending atmosphere like rich life-cake, the kind that encourages love and brings on a mild pain of emotions. A state that lets you rest in your own specific gravity, and where you are not subject matter but sit in your own nature, tasting original tastes as good as the first man, and are outside of the busy human tamper, left free even of your own habits. Which only lie on your illusory in the sunshine, in the usual relation of your feet or fingers or the knot of your shoestrings and are without power. No more than the comb or shadow of your hair has power on your brain."

And a side note. Read that passage thinking about your 6th grade English class, and think about how many things he does that your teacher told you you couldn't do. Don't think about being the smart mouthed little kid who points out to them that Bellow did it, and he won a Nobel Prize. All they'd have done is say to you "Well, when you win the Nobel Prize, you can do it too." Unless they were really good, then they might have told you that you have to learn the rules before you can break them.