Spring

Everywhere I look I see new growth. Buds ripening. Cherry blossoms bursting into soft pinkness. Vivid colors superimposed over the blue-grays of sky and water. New green shoots pushing up from seemingly lifeless brown twigs. Surely there is a metaphor here.

I am cold. I miss the warmth. I long to feel it permeate my limbs, my skin, my heart.

I’ve used a cliff metaphor perhaps too frequently in the past for it to fully fit now, but I do feel that I have at least dipped a toe into the waters of change. Change happens slowly sometimes, stealthily, without us noticing, like a cat climbing into your lap: one paw, one whisker at a time so you will fail to notice movement at all until there are four paws of purring goodness curled contentedly where a few moments ago there were none. I feel that cat now, or one of her paws…

A friend tells me I know what is right for me. The next step. I look to the gods for reassurance, to the winds, to the stones, but they remain silent. All I notice is growth. Movement. All that is required is to step into the flow and let the current add its weight to my own. Exponential. Like breathing. I send my own green shoots deep underground where they grab hold and grow into exploding brilliant stars overhead, magnified by the rains and winds of my soul’s longing.

I know what I need to do now. The song of it fills me, warms me, exposes me to the soft warm breath of spring.