Early Birds

The unseasonably warm weather we are now having has fed my impatience to move the calendar along to spring. I have gardens to dig, plants to order, trees to identify and trim! Every day now, unless it is raining, I don my jacket and boots, and make a circle around the periphery of our yard, then tiptoe through last year’s beds closer to the house, measuring small changes and checking for signs of life beyond the weeds that appear to need neither encouragement nor warmth to grow.

Few here can remember a winter with no snow accumulation, but here we are in mid-February, and many now conclude that this is the year that cold and snow are never going to come.

Today, as I took advantage of the sunshine to map out a new bed for prairie flowers, I spied in the grass a small patch of crocuses reaching for the sun. Aha! These cheerful little volunteers are optimists like me, I thought, ready to declare this winter prematurely done. And yes, they may be right. But I am also reminded that these crocus early birds know how to close back up and disappear if snow or cold return. Point taken. I will enjoy the warm weather while it’s here but hold my breath and patience for surer signs of spring.

Reflections

On such a beautiful, warm day as today, we grabbed the chance to walk in an old county park that John and I both remember from our childhood. There is not much that distinguishes Smedley Park - the main path winds through an old baseball field, then down underneath a busy highway, and onward, along a small creek that once powered an old 18th Century mill, the shell of which has been converted into a rather unremarkable office park - but it’s a place John considered his private playground when he was young and which brings back a vaguely frightening memory for me of scouting for bridge trolls with a young friend I can no longer name.

We do not have the opportunity to go back in time, to relive the best bits of our lives, but there are days when the sun shines and the creeks flow enough to see reflections of what is good and what is special about our life today and what mattered in the days and years gone by.

My Only Resolution

This is the day we celebrate the turning of the clock between two calendar years, an arbitrary marker meant to put the past behind us and look brightly toward the year that is to come.

I’ve never liked this holiday whose purpose seems only to remind us time is passing. Since I was a young girl I’ve watched the ball drop in New York City amidst a sea of revelers, and wondered what the fuss was all about. At best, it is a holiday of mixed messages: one that urges us to drink and be merry even as we already regret our holiday gluttony and have made a resolution to do better; one that asks us to be hopeful even as endless news feeds take stock of the right mess the world is in and predict what more grief is coming down the pike (oh, those ‘best of’ and ‘worst of’ lists!); even as the media’s image of glittery people at elegant New Year’s parties make 99% of us feel left out.

Do I sound bitter? I am not. I am getting older, if not wiser. I don’t need a holiday to tell me that. Crazier, too, perhaps. Freer, definitely, and happier. Grateful, above all else. So here’s my only resolution on this enigmatic day: I will spend the evening with my friends, feeling grateful for the grace that’s ever-present in my life. I will go to bed before the ball drops down and the fireworks go off. And I will wake up in the morning simply glad to be alive another day, and welcoming of the earth’s inevitable turn toward spring.