Here it is. It being the increasing evidence that seasonal warmth has indeed arrived. Winter’s now definitely gone. Spring’s officially well underway and a summer-like 85 degree temp has already, if abruptly, given a tantalizing preview of what’s to come.

Outdoor deck-life has finally commenced. That much favored wall-free room is once again up and running in anticipation of its natural decor emerging anew from another winter’s reminder that absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder. A “Life Is Good” optimism reigns. The view of the world cherry-picked from a deck chair always seems to ameliorate all that conspires against finding one’s way towards experiencing “The Way Life Should Be.”

My urban deck is small by most standards but altogether immensely sensory enhancing. Though it sits just 12 feet from the street, soon it’ll be discreetly screened by a well sited Crusader Hawthorn’s stalwart provision of privacy. Yet even now passing cars only momentarily disrupt the seemingly rural serenity of Bath’s 19th century organically designed South End. Those distant downhill vehicles shooting across Washington St.’s narrow view shed of the Kennebec are far enough away to remain mere silently fleeting modern impositions as the more nearby hum of already hard at work bees comes and goes. Overall, the greatest sustained noise is that of myriad birds calling here, there and all about their return. Everywhere the eye and ear gives attention there’s the growing hubbub of nature’s cooperative competition. To everything there is a season. In spring’s joyous reverie all of life appears indisputably purposeful. Nature’s way never fails to be profoundly instructive in its instinctively hopeful promise.

However, even natural cohabitation sometimes fails perfection. Life’s all about give and take. Nevertheless, right now, from the vantage point of a modest deck with a modest view of Maine’s most majestic river, and a sky above filled with equally magnificent billowing clouds, co-existence is working pretty darn well. Here nature appears unharmed and this history-rich neighborhood’s neighborliness abides and endures. Last week’s now rare BIW noise issue eventually resolved itself, once again proving that an industrial residential interface doesn’t ever need to be in anyone’s face and can still profitably cooperate most amiably.

As I write, winter’s view of the Trufant Marsh is being steadily obscured by a sizable Sargent Cherry’s opulent explosion of flowering color. Looking north up Middle St., towering aged trees have one by one begun to faithfully leaf out among housing that still looks much like it did a hundred, or twice that, years ago. Bath’s rich architectural heritage and equally distinctive and irreplaceable urban forest just keeps on keeping on, holding its own without any fanfare and blessedly spared the often mixed blessing of gentrification. Hard as some try, Bath always manages to successfully escape being “discovered.”

Even with the burden of private parking upon the vestiges of a residential life predating our automobile appendages, Bath’s historical aesthetic still manages to overcome the indifferent assault of modernity. Thankfully car design still makes some attempt at visual appeal.

Year after year, this once disparaged part of Bath continues to upgrade in attractiveness as property improvement motivated by single family ownership and both municipal and private arboreal appreciation preserves the priceless commodity of a vibrant “quality of place.” Bath’s a wonderful place to live and its quality of life is inseparable from its unique aesthetic character.

Sadly, all of those positive attributes are forced to co-exist with the complete aesthetic disregard of CMP’s callous “Could we make our energy conveyance any more visually offensive?”

Unfortunately, the answer is yes, as exhibited when their ugly sticks require the additional aesthetic assault of horribly disfiguring pruning, especially to longstanding mature specimens of urban forestry. Rarely is the pruning even horticulturally correct in regard to the tree’s health or survival but rather dictated by profitability’s bottom line.

Like most people, I’ve adopted the cognitive denial of mentally editing my perception so as not to obsess on what we have been convinced is a like it or not “We’re too big to have to change” inevitable oppressive omnipresence. No one’s actually convinced of that, but that elephant in the room is safe among us ostriches.

I try to dwell on all the intended beauty here in a small city that once looked towards ancient Greece in architectural bar-setting. A city built long before Henry Ford’s and Edison’s “necessities” intruded on its previously more romantic economic underpinnings, in the days when the straightest and tallest of trees were cut down for elegant ship masts.

If you set out to make a tree as repulsive as possible you’d have a difficult time surpassing its ironic transformation into the commonly accepted utility pole. Why can’t our world dominant economy afford to put electric and communication conveyance underground like most other advanced countries have done long ago? Whether as Mainers or Americans, why are we so spineless in standing up against a needlessly wearisome status quo? Why do we put up with having to make believe that we don’t see a surreal offensive infrastructure which no one finds even remotely in keeping with “The Way Life Should Be?”

Gary Anderson lives in Bath.