let me read it to you…

Beginnings are sprouting everywhere, even in the most inhospitable places, even where I really don’t want them to, it seems. Every hour, a new thing appears where there were only dry leaves and dirt.

And there are days when I want to begin again, start over, like how the neighbor’s lilac bushes come back each year to see if they can do a little better or make me stop and sigh one more time.

And then there are days when I just want everything to stop, hold still, just for a moment – no beginnings, no endings. I want to linger inside the snapshot awhile, mid-stride, barefoot on the grass, eyes closed with my face turned up to the blue and white dome overhead, a blur of some bird in the background, my whole past unseen, just out of the frame to the left, the uncertain future to the right.

Today is just that kind of day, the one I’ve been holding in my imagination since last November. It’s the kind of day I really look forward to. A day when writing is the work, gathering with a few beautiful women is the work, having another cup of coffee, lighting the candle, looking for poems is the work. And later, my work will be done at the nearby park with my camera slung across my chest.

And if today was a perfect day, there will be baby ducks following mama ducks, the giant willow already stretching yellow whips toward the water, a man with a guitar on the bench in front of the pavilion. Strangers will smile and say hello as they walk by.

Today is that kind of day when I might just bother to pack some sandwiches and blueberries and gouda and San Pellegrino in a picnic basket, carry an old wool blanket and the complete poems of Adrienne Rich to a spot of new lawn by the lake and leave the phone at home. Leave any notion of time or responsibility on the kitchen counter and just go get reacquainted with the way spring makes a song out of cloud and bird and dirt.