with thoughts of spring

Saturday brought snow. And not just some, but lots. While I'm rather fond of that fluffy white stuff, it was all too overwhelming at the time. And even though dad cleared the normal path along the grass between our house and the R's and lined it with the pink flamingos, winter still seemed eternal. You see, I've been hibernating in this shell of mine all season, trying to mask my turtleness with every imaginable fashion find. With the arrival of March I was ready to don my inner (in this turtle shell case, I guess it's outter) Donatello. Saturday's falling flakes brought another feeble attempt to keep warm while not appearing too Yurtle Turtley. It was all rather sad, really. Then the table for work didn't arrive, the color of the fabric was all wrong and I had to make phone calls to important people and say things I didn't want to say.

Then today. Today was rather glorious on many accounts. First, tulips. Green poking through white, reaching up towards the sun. A sure sign of warmer days. I smiled at the sight of them. After a four o'clock to-heck-with-it moment, I ended the day early and headed up to see grandma. I found her in the front room in her chair. "It's spring outside, Grandma!" I announced, drawing the drapes on the giant window that frames the mountain. We took in the view and drank in the sunshine and blue sky and then took a walking tour of the house to look at "treasures" from far away places. All of a sudden I didn't care about late tables and turtle shells. Who has time for complaining with fifty degree weather and tulips poking through the snow and a grandmother who will be 100 years old in less than 30 days? Who has time to worry about the color of the fabric when there are big open windows and mountain vistas and around the world weather forecasts delivered via telephone? As I drove down the hill towards the valley, I thought of warmer places and warmer things, and snow melting quickly under the feet of those silly flamingos. And suddenly my soul loosened with the thought of spring.