Spring

The last Sunday of the last weekend of the winter dawns clear and cold. The snow is now all but a memory due to the recent warm and wet spell.  Its only remnants are small mounds,  pockmarking the ends of driveways and local parking lots. These once giant edifices, pure and gleaming white, have turned darker and grown tinier with each passing day. 

The wind, a constant companion these past months, blows gently, tree limbs swaying ever so slightly. There is little other evidence of life. The lawns are without color and energy, not yet awake from their long slumber.  The flowers not yet reborn, still fearful to poke their heads out, still unsure what they may find.

I wonder if the streets I will walk in the coming months have missed me, or even noticed I was gone.  Will they have grown older and more pock-marked since last we were together? Will any of them have received a facelift, and appear as new and fresh as a day old baby? Will we once more be friends, or will I look to find a road less traveled and soon search out other avenues to offer my allegiance?

The excited sounds at the local pond hang in the air, as if they never disappeared. I can see the young children running into the roped off area to swim, the anxious young parents with fixed gaze or firm grip,  The water welcoming its visitors, at first appearing cold and harsh, but with full embrace, radiating warmth. The kayaks and canoes moving freely about, colors gliding from end to end and back again.

My bike is asking when we will begin our adventures. When will we wander off and get lost, uncertain of where we are of in which direction we turn, but knowing that all roads eventually lead home? When will it feel me strain, when will it hear my breathing change from steady to staccato? When will the hill be too steep for us to stay joined as one? When will we hear the cows moo, the chickens cluck? When will we stop and just look into the distance to see how far we can see?

And the hiking trails, those are the ones I am most anxious to spend time with. I want them to  know that my family and  I understand that this is a journey worth taking, that the obstacles will be many, that the ascent will be hard, but that the rewards will be great. I want them to know that I am deeply indebted to them for what they are doing, how much it means to me to have my son and his walking sticks there beside me, how much I have missed them over the past months, and how I long to stand at their peak to join them in understanding what magnificence truly looks like.

Winter is loosening its grip.  I am ready to renew acquaintances that have been in hibernation.  Spring is almost upon us, and rebirth, in its many forms, awaits.