Moisture

Moisture comes in many forms. Drizzle, mist, thunderstorm, hail, sleet, snow. Although today is the first of May, the clumps of wet snow fall down my neck as I examine my tulips bending under the weight of today's chosen form of moisture. Perhaps gratitude comes in many forms as well. The heart swelling, bursting with joy kind that you can't escape. The everyday kind that is so easy to take for granted. And the secret, unlooked for kind that can so easily go unnoticed.

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.

Emerging

 

I returned from the beginning of fall in one hemisphere to the beginning of spring in the other. While the days were milder in the early fall, there is a sense that the long nights are approaching. Dark in the morning, but not yet cool. Plants past their prime needing to be cut back. Nature's bounty available at the farm stands.

Here a snowstorm had just piled a fresh 10 inches, but it was a memory within two days. Underneath last year's dead heads are new green shoots trying to climb out. While the temperature may be ten degrees cooler than what I left, the cyclists and runners and hikers cruise around as if it were midsummer. A brisk breeze arrives from the north. Maybe it will bring rain this time.