04.07.16  Oh what a beautiful morning!  The blue light reflected off the lake is the color of bath water.  It is so still, but for the geese down south and the barn swallows which arrived yesterday afternoon, darting and soaring high overhead.  I even hear a boat on the other side of the lake, jump-starting this new season.  We sat on our chairs on the front porch last evening, with sunshine at our backs.  The lake is as low as it will be, poised to receive the snow melt which is imminent.  With two days ahead of record-warm temperature, it is clear, there is no going back to winter.

I can count on Spring now, and I’m determined to not rush through it this year.  My birthday is coming up and I will enter the final year of my sixth decade;  there’s no time to waste, wishing for our long cool and wet spring to pass by quickly so we can lounge into our legendary midnight sun days and nights.  Besides, I think I’ve overlooked the value of Spring as a transitional season.  I need these thresholds to mark time, not only to prepare me for the experience of another season, but to reflect upon what I’ve left behind.  “Threshold” is an architectural term–the sill of a door or piece of wood that forms the doorway.  It offers support when passing through from one space to the next.  I like its support.

We look with uncertainty
by Anne Hillman

We look with uncertainty
beyond the old choices for
clear-cut answers
to a softer, more permeable aliveness
which is every moment
at the brink of death;
for something new is being born in us
if we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
awaiting that which comes…
daring to be human creatures,
vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
Learning to love.