Awaken Sleeping Beauties. It's Spring!

"Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's Party!" Robin Williams

"...springtime maks people crazy. We expect too much, the world burgeons with promises it can't keep, all passion is really a set up, and we're doomed to get our hearts broken yet again, I agree, and would further add: Who cares? Every spring I go out there anyway, around the bend, unconditionally....Come the end of the dark days, I am more than joyful. I'm nuts." Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Winter is a holding pattern, when I don't seem to know who I am. Several winters back I capped off holiday festivities with bouts of Seasonal Affective Disorder which came with paralyzing ennui and tethered me to home for weeks at a time. I became very undependable, not knowing if I could plan ahead, not knowing if I could followthrough if I did plan. And then in a burst came the daffodils and, as yesterday, blizzards of flowering pear petals blowing off into the sunshine, and with it the me I thought I knew, the me I hoped would return, blew back in, at first with tentative appearances, and then with strength until I joined the lusty bloomers.

Awaken sleeping beauties. There's no time to waste. The blooming season goes quickly. Bud now and catch a ride. Last May after years of writing prayers and sharing them with friends, I planted within myself the seeds of sharing my prayers with more and more friends-to-be. My first blog came out last May. The buds burst, seeds flew in the wind. Hello Australia. Hello India. Hello Great Britain, Canada, Eastern Europe. I had to wake up to using Facebook too, and not knowing who was reading me, but certainly hoping more and more would.

This year I'm dancing with ideas for creating cards with the little ladies I draw, and I'm putting this idea out to the world. Is my arty sleeping beauty self going to bloom through this spring and summer? Do I expect too much? Am I making promises I can't keep? Am I setting myself up? Who cares. I'm having a great time playing catch with this idea.

It's in holding things lightly I am able to let them go. Each spring I feel I know who I am and who I can be, if I will. Each spring I want to be a fairy and go round the bend with joy and new possibilities. Each spring I grow more and more into my surprised and joyful self.

Baruch ata adonai...what a change from the last tension filled weeks. I open the window and smell possibilities. Thank you for being with me, for not leaving me to my own worst self. Thank you for spring, for flowers, for longer sunny days, for hope. Amen