{"id":294,"date":"2026-03-31T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T00:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/searchingwithin.com\/wordpress\/?p=294"},"modified":"2026-05-15T19:57:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:57:31","slug":"spring-has-started-do-the-groundhogs-still-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchingwithin.com\/wordpress\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"Spring Has Started; Do the Groundhogs Still Live"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where does memory go when it\u2019s lost? Short-term, long-term, muscle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/searchingwithin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ontask_groundhog_-profile_b4of6ms_-v_8.1_9aad6ad3-00b2-4c2b-8725-865069377175_1a.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchingwithin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ontask_groundhog_-profile_b4of6ms_-v_8.1_9aad6ad3-00b2-4c2b-8725-865069377175_1a.jpg 576w, https:\/\/searchingwithin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ontask_groundhog_-profile_b4of6ms_-v_8.1_9aad6ad3-00b2-4c2b-8725-865069377175_1a-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/searchingwithin.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ontask_groundhog_-profile_b4of6ms_-v_8.1_9aad6ad3-00b2-4c2b-8725-865069377175_1a-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0<br>The John Nolan exit groundhog was a daily or weekly ritual. So if I was driving to Madison to get to work downtown, that would\u2019ve been from the years 1999 all the way through 2019, the year I lost my Ranger. Admittedly once I moved to Bedford Street any use of that exit was occasional, such as when I was out and about and then coming home. But in my journal, I have a notation of a day \u2014yeah somewhere that journal search can\u2019t locate\u2014that I saw him. Fat, brown, groundhog. Very likely that date as a pivot, maybe three years before it and maybe three years after it was the period where I saw the groundhog multiple times. Strange. I would search and search for him every time I went around the cloverleaf. Seeing him was so exciting when it was obvious that, no\u2026 he was just sitting there in the grass. I thought of him as my groundhog, which is ridiculous because that\u2019s kind of like thinking an actor, artist, or musician has a relationship with you when you\u2019re only a fan. At least I never named him. He was just the John Nolan exit groundhog.<br>\u00a0<br>It definitely is strange how muscle memory works. I\u2019m still looking for him, but it\u2019s been years and years and years \u2014at least half a decade or more\u2014since he disappeared. My head and eyes turn and scan before I even realize what I\u2019m doing.<br>\u00a0<br>Where did you go? I miss the possibility of you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where does memory go when it\u2019s lost? Short-term, long-term, muscle. \u00a0The John Nolan exit groundhog was a daily or weekly ritual. So if I was driving to Madison to get to work downtown, that would\u2019ve been from the years 1999 all the way through 2019, the year I lost my Ranger. Admittedly once I moved [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-processing","tag-dst-tk"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Spring Has Started; Do the Groundhogs Still Live - Searching Within<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/searchingwithin.com\/wordpress\/?p=294\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spring Has Started; Do the Groundhogs Still Live - Searching Within\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Where does memory go when it\u2019s lost? 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