Spring

New Every Morning

Every day is a fresh beginning,

Listen my soul to the glad refrain.

   And, spite of old sorrows

       And older sinning,

       Troubles forecasted

        And possible pain,

Take heart with the day and begin again.

Susan Coolidge

I've been meaning, for awhile, to go on a photographic mission, searching out signs of Spring. Yesterday, I dodged rain and sprinklings of hail to take these pictures in my own backyard! Granted the first pic is from a bouquet that I placed on the backporch -- but it doesn't feel like cheating:)
The poem is from a book a dear friend gave to me and it has been with me for several days. A prayer at the end of the day. A part of me has been feeling the "old sorrows" and "forecasted" troubles -- mine and others'. Part political, part economical and part working with families caught in the maelstrom of the two. There are the personal, and frankly more mundane, aches and pains. Big D has his first loose tooth and Little' Sis' 3rd birthday is around the corner. How'd I get to be in my 30's so quickly? and my children seem to be racing to catch up! Hubby and I have been married nearly 10 years  . . . another 10 will come and go before I know it and then what? another 10? I think I'm having a little early-midlife angst (doesn't that seem like an appropriate developmental stage?).

I need the promise of new beginnings with the entrance of spring. The sun and bright color of new leaves and crocuses feels healing and hopeful. As if we might all pull out of this winter. I need optimism. I'll borrow spring's for now. Less for me as I see my angst for what it is -- but more for the work I do and the hurt that feels near universal. God, I can't take more of the grief I've seen this week. 

But I can and I will. New every morning. I can feel sad and angry and still believe that people are basically good and that change will come. 

Enough from the overwrought therapist for now! Cheers and thanks for listening.