I know it will show up eventually, but I find joy in the search and discovery of each little sign.
For today's ramble, I'm heading to the creek. Want to come along and see what's to discover?
I pick my way along the creek edge, close as I dare. I imagine I'm sharing the worn path with a ghost coon who last night carefully washed scavenged corn in the shallows, while delicate paws sank deep into fresh mud. See the deep imprint there in the sediment deposited after snow melt? Both mud and active raccoons are a soft sign of spring. I’ll take them!
The stream bedazzles me. Liquid stars flicker and frolic, and I have to squint, but I cannot look away. Murmuring, chuckling across rocks as smooth as old thoughts, water music disperses dark notions that would roost in my brain like migrating starlings.
Is this how it always is, the seeking, the finding, the celebrating?
Not just with spring, but with life?
It's worth pondering.
What I look for, that’s what I find. And the unsought, I’ll never find that.
The good in another,
the movement toward hope,
the healing of a rift.
What am I looking for?
“Ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives,
and the one who seeks finds,
and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”
(Matthew 7:7,8)
Maybe that thing I’m waiting for – that change, that renewal, that shift –
will only be found if I actively seek it.
Maybe I need to watch for it, look for it, seek it, like I seek spring on an early April afternoon
when the temperature is 40 degrees and the wind is sharp
and the willows are dancing in gossamer.