Spring

Someday I will look back on myself at this moment with envy.  As I sit on the cliffs at Torrey Pines overlooking the vast ocean, I can't deny the beauty of my surroundings.  I can sense Spring waiting just beyond each bend in the path.  Like a child impatient to reveal the most exciting secret she's ever known, it quivers in the sleepy buds and crouches beneath each dusty bush.  The hillsides are poised to burst into color.  The air smells wild and spicy and free.

Spring is a moment of tension - a promise, but one filled with uncertainty.  Maybe there will still be storms and cold weather.  Maybe these first tender buds won't make it.  Maybe those baby robins will die in their nest in the next downpour.  When I was about 10 my family gathered in front of the big living room window to watch in awe as a vicious hail storm knocked all the new leaves off the trees and subjected the green shoots of the first brave bulbs to an unrelenting assault of ice pellets.  I doubted my parents' assurances that the leaves would grow back.  How could they be so sure?  Even the buds were gone - I couldn't imagine the trees and flowers recovering from such a setback.  Maybe we wouldn't have spring at all that year!

But the next season is inevitable, in spite of the struggles of this tenderest, most vulnerable time.  Sumer is i-cumin in, no matter what I do, and events will unfold and develop and change whether I will them to or not.  Maybe it's okay to release my grip a little bit and cast my fate to the wind.  This is not the last sunny day, and it won't be the end of the storms, either.  Might as well take a seat at the big window and enjoy the view.