The 50° Day Ritual

The last week of March often offers a 50° day in Vermont, and at this point in the season, we can believe it's summer (even if the ice on Lake Champlain is just beginning to break up). We pack our folding chairs and a picnic with plans to bask in the sun. This cedar lined shore, called Button Bay, is one of my favorite places to celebrate. This is where the birds congregate--in the patches where water opens.

anticipation of spring

 

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all of the time.
"

-Marcel Proust

after the snow

poetry

I received a card from my mother in the mail today.

It's a sunny day... a suggestion of spring in every soft-smoosh step. I walked carefully back from the mailbox noting the way coarse snow feels like sand under the weight of my boot, beneath the slow radiance of two o'clock in the afternoon on March 1st.

The cover of the card reads:

Cool clear water
and fireflies that vanish
that is all there is...

-Chiyo-ni

The world silenced. My mind silenced (I should say) in that moment I allowed my mind to breathe, to feel that place, my history. Mmmmm... what a sweet reminder--it is not only ahead but right here, in now.