Spring Is Coming

Sometimes a winter morning just feels different, as though Spring is coming. I opened some windows a bit this morning to air out the house and the 19 degrees outside did not feel like 19 degrees. They felt like hope. And the hope brought memories of other springs and even summers, times when the three of us have laughed together. And times when I spring-cleaned and the doors were opened and music enticed the outdoors to come in.

I stepped down to the basement and even Spring teased me there. Memories of doing laundry to be taken and hung outside. Memories of the opened windows down there on sunny mornings when everything felt fresh and there was the hum of a quiet week day laced with bird song.

And when Tom and I drove to an estate sale this morning I was amazed that a house was being built! Even with snow all around and these temperatures below 20 degrees. And a building had been torn down and the sun was still out and it hit me-- there is still a world out here and life is still going on.

I've been inside too long. And the times I've gone driving, I've taken the same roads too much and not ventured out far enough.

Oh, but we are so far away from Spring here, technically.

One year I experienced the birth of Spring twice! The year we moved here from Nevada--1993. Tom had lived here since that February and he was engulfed in record-setting blizzards, even in April. But back in Nevada, Naomi and I were waking to trees with green leaves and fields with sweeping new birth.

And then at April's end, Naomi and I flew out here and it was still Winter! Brown, brown, brown winter--and muddy snow--for another two weeks.

But Spring came again and I marveled that I'd experienced her birth twice in one year and what a gift that was.

And yes, often we don't see Spring until May here. Once in awhile she arrives in April.

Or sometimes she arrives even in February like she did today, but only in my Heartland. Only by way of the very fingers of God.