Hello, good news! We are well into the month of March and on the 20th day, spring actually begins. But on the other hand March is, and always has been, an unpredictable month, but it is rather fascinating because of that unpredictability.
Looking to the heavens, the skies are a sight to behold as gray and white clouds chase each other, scurrying and dancing always one step ahead of the pursuing March winds.
Through my windows I have observed and gloried in the welcome emergence of the tips of tulips and daffodils from the still-cold ground and I've watched the pussy willows tickle the beaks of romantic-minded doves nestled there.
When my husband was alive and well and spring was strong in the air, we would go for a long drive in whatever direction we chose. If we went the southerly route we would eventually end up somewhere in Greene County where we enjoyed watching frisky sheep joyfully frolicking all over the steep and now-greening hillsides. "Rejoice!" they seemed to be saying.
Other days we headed toward the mountains and we often went far enough to end up in Amish country where we would see those delightful Amish children at play in their own special schoolyard. Black coats flapping, bonnets bobbing in the brisk breezes of March. Each in our own way, we were celebrating the weather.
This year, we spring lovers, in our impatience, were almost fooled into believing (or was it wishing?) that those almost-balmy days we enjoyed in January were a sign that we might have an early spring but our hopes were quickly dashed when we got to February.
Now that spring is so close, I am longing for the real thing. No more teasing, please. I want to look at a mountainside and be dazzled by a pale pink profusion of mountain laurel blossoms or gasp in delight at the sight of hundreds of trillium covering a forest floor. Standing along banks of a cold, full stream celebrating spring in its own enthusiastic way, would be nice. And to see the woodland ferns slowly uncurling is like magic. The wonder of rebirth!
Most of all, it would be a welcome wonder to once again sit on my back porch and feel the tender touch of morning sunshine on my winter-dried skin. But knowing the fickle reputation of March, we could still awaken to an ice-covered world that, overnight had become a glistening fairyland where every blade of grass, each gnarled tree branch has been touched by the Master's icy paint brush.
Then as the day warms up, as it sometimes does in March, thousands of tiny droplets form, reflect the weak sunbeams and slowly drops to the ground.
In Psalms 147:17-18 there are these words: "He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold⢠He sends forth his word and melts them ..."
The whole world is in his hands, so we would be wise to accept what comes -- especially the weather.
