Friday, February 29, 2008

Leaping into spring

Feb. 29 is such a misfit day. Every four years it comes pushing and shoving its way into the calendar, making the shortest month of the year an extra day longer. Leap year.

So how did I spend my misfit day? I went to work, but I left early to go to a prayer service for a friend's father who had died. Tomorrow is his funeral.

Funerals are still hard for me. I'm weary of crying. Saddened beyond measure to see my friends crying.

But I'm declaring that today is the kick-off day for spring.

One thing about spring is that it's hard for my spirit to stay low when I see things perking up. I'll find myself watching the scrawny lilac tree/bush thing outside my window. It's the first to report in with buds.

Birds, more than the big black cawing monsters that populate my backyard in winter, making it look like something from a bad folktale--yes, more birds will come and that raucous bleating will be replaced with robin songs.

The snow will go away, and the world will be, as e.e. cummings said, "mud-luscious."

And we will find ourselves smiling again.

4 comments:

Kacie said...

Here, we call it "break up." Or so I've been told. It sounds a little violent, a little exciting, and I'm waiting anxiously for it to begin.

(I would be the one with my nose plastered to the upstairs window, peering out into the falling snow, asking herself when--oh when--spring...er, uh "break up" is going to arrive.)

Kacie said...

Did you catch the "falling snow" part? :Sigh:

Janet Spaeth said...

Well, it doesn't snow here. Not a bit. Uh-uh. What we have here is a fierce wind that blows all the snow from Alaska and....

Or maybe not.

Kacie said...

Yeah--I figured out that spring--CRAP!--"break up"--season is windy here, too. Still, there's a big difference between 37 and windy and 3 and windy. I'll concede. ;)