Everyday

Everyday is life, and everyday has its wonder and its challenges. My tulips are unfolding before my eyes, having been delayed by a foot of snow each of the last four Tuesdays. The challenge for my tulips this week will be six more inches forecast to fall tonight. April's last hurrah.
While the world around me is seesawing between winter and summer, I feel the same. Beautiful morning runs in cool, clear weather, bring out the best in me. There is a joy in being out that makes the effort feel effortless. At the same time, I'm thinking of my mom, and her challenges with dementia. It's part of her arc of life, after avoiding all the other diseases that have lain in wait, and now reaching her late nineties. She awaits the antics of the squirrels outside her window, or a phone call from one of the family, or a bite of bitter, dark chocolate, or a swirl around the dance floor as she leads my husband. I've spent the last twenty five years helping my daughters become more independent everyday, and now, everyday, I try to soften the blow to my mother of losing that treasured independence.

Adapting

We have an amazing capacity for adapting to what life throws at us. The water used the fence as a new support for the icicle, caught in the spring freeze and thaw cycle. We move on after senseless tragedies like Boston. Fear for my daughter's safety on that afternoon has moved to a commitment that we can't let "them" win. Whether the "them" is a deranged individual or an illness, it does not define us, and it does not hold us hostage. We can adapt, and find a new joy in the everyday that we may have been overlooking.

Persist

Even though we are alternating between snowstorms and sunshine this April, it's time for the pasqueflower to bloom. One of the first blooms of the season, it appears to ignore the weather and 60 degree swing of temperature within days.

Change is constant

Last Sunday we had brunch at this table. Eight days later it is still spring, but a different side is showing. If you can't deal with change, life can be uncomfortable. Embrace the unexpected as I start on another dance with my body and its roque cells.

Spring comes in many forms

While my daffodils have just opened to the sunshine, and the grass gains color by the day, the other spring is happening in the mountains. If you didn't have a thermometer handy, it might still appear that winter is firmly in charge. But the air is warmer, smells of pine needles float by on softer currents, the sun climbs higher in the sky to shine even on the north facing slopes, and the snow begins the slow transformation from a solid to a liquid.