Coming

I love my daughter. And I enjoy listening to her practice her chosen instruments (trumpet and piano). But I do not find the practicing of said instruments to be conducive to writing.

This is because I am easily distracted. Except when I'm really engaged in something. Then I'm impossible to move off topic. Imagine the joy I must be to live with. :-)

And the joy of living is a bit slim around here lately. Not that things are dreadful or anything. But Carl has been off work for over a week now, with that nasty virus everyone has. It's hard for a person to work in radio when they can't talk. Anxiety continues to stalk the girl child. Man child is doing just fine, though, thank you very much.

I am grateful for such small favors these days. The extended days, with sunshine on occasion peaking through the bare branches until past 6:30 some evenings. A good night of light and medium conversation, complete with sliced cucumbers and apple pie ala mode. The blessedly simple addition of the new computer to our already-extant home network.

Mostly I'm grateful because spring is coming. It is coming, even though there is--even as I type--snow gently falling outside. The certainty that a moist loamy scent will be detectable when the thermometer creeps to 45 and then 50. The little spiky greens that are, even now, poking through the still chilled earth will come forth with some fresh spring color. And the sun will shine and shine, until we tire of it and wish for a rainy day cloudburst.

Those certainties, that's what lures me to and through the end of winter. And, though Easter is certainly too early this year, it coincides quite nicely with my current longing for renewal and resurrection. Holy Week is now, though spring often feels like each successive week is holy, as I watch buds and leaves and flowers and children burst from their hiding places, having grown and changed, yet still essentially the same.

Even as I bemoan its foot-dragging, I love how spring doesn't happen all at once. Even when the weather doesn't cooperate, even if we have a Midwest spring that moves from 0 to 100mph, skipping the 50 and 60 degree temps entirely and moving into the 70s with abandon, spring still emulates fog, moving on little cat feet.

Blink your eyes and you'll miss each tiny step. Foolishly wish yourself straight into spring proper and you'll miss all of the gray-skied slow beauty of this season, its slow constancy that reassures as it progresses. It will come. It may be fleeting, it may pass you by in the blink of an eye, an overnight of rain and a sudden swath of green grass. But it will come.

Liz