Thoughts

The coming of Spring can make us thoughtful, hopeful. We watch for it, look for signs, like the red-shafted flicker returning to my chimney. He sits up there like a king and drills on the metal cap and then calls out to let me and everyone else know that this is his place. That I think it is my place is irrelevant to him.

He's quite annoying, and yet I'm glad to see him.

Like the neighbor's tulips already pushing up, like the local stores putting out their trays of flowers and racks of seed packets.

What a miracle it is that there is life in a bulb, life in a tiny seed. What a miracle that the seed needs to be buried deep in dirt before it can live.

This year I have been impatient for Spring, more than usual, I think. The winter has seemed long and many days of it dreary. Today we had rain in the morning, and I feared the weather people might be right in their predictions of rain all day.

But we have sun in the afternoon. Oh joy! And I know I am not alone in being cheered by sunshine and blue sky.

Spring heals many ills. Soothes some of those nameless longings. Gives us the sense of things being right.

But can it heal Japan? Its 8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami has destroyed Sendai and other cities, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without a home, without anything. No one knows yet how many are dead. No one knows where the dead are.

Can it ease middle east rebellions and heavy-handed government responses? Egypt, Tunisia, Lybia, and now Bahrain. Who's next? What's next?

We're asking a lot of Spring this year.

Nothing to do but wait for it and remain grateful for what I have. And hopeful.