Spring Again

The winter was long and extremely stormy here.  Wet, grey day followed wet grey day until we forgot that the sky was ever meant to be anything but a place where the ocean gathered over our heads.

At last the sun has begun to make brief appearances and the spongy earth has yielded a host of blooms, eager to grow as soon as they felt that first flush of warmth kissing their sleeping cheek.The darkness lingers in my house but the sun beckons me outside, the beaches and trails are scrubbed clean from a barrage of winter storms, except for the fallen branches and driftwood.

Easter season always speaks of rebirth and new life, but this year, more than most, there was a need in me to see the newness, to feel the warmth, and hear how silent it can be when the wind stopped.

The Azalea in a pot in my house has bloomed pink every year, but this year and last, it has featured one albino bloom as well.  I don't know why that one snowy bloom amid the rosy others, seems so promising, but I keep coming back to stare and feed my soul on its beauty.

I wrote last fall, of the death of my beloved yellow cat, and how I buried her in the rain, with daffodil bulbs.  Now her grave has become a flower bed and I find peace in that as well.

My only remaining cat has found himself wanting more companionship and is often under my feet when I haul firewood or work in the yard.

Even down at the Crescent City harbor, so recently devastated by the Tsunami and the loss of a fleet of commercial boats, There is a renewal and a sense of hope.  The enormous floating crane, hired to raise the sunken boats, has completed the task.

The animals have survived without a one being found with oil on its fur or feathers.  The city is pulling together to cheer for Crescent City on the Reader's Digest, We Hear You competition and life resumes where chaos reigned for a month.

 I find it easy in the spring, to be an optimist.  I choose to remember that it is the simple, inexpensive, treats in my life that make me the happiest.  Talking to my teenagers, typing on a story, focusing my camera on a beauty; I find it imposible to feel the cold, grey of winter anymore.