Anticipation

It is official. This is the seventh consecutive month of snow. Normally by April 7th crocus, tulips or buttercups would be dotting the landscape, whispering a promise of approaching summer days and warm afternoons floating down Sand Creek in a kayak.

Snow continues to fall. Canadian geese caught by surprise in this bad weather, honk their disappointment while disoriented robins attempt to chisel frozen worms out of the edges of slowly melting snow banks. Painted toenails and flip- flops are a distant dream.

It occurred to me this afternoon as we met with the landscaper, dreaming of all the wonderful yard projects to come, that I have lived the last few months as though I were holding my breath. I haven't been living in the here-and- now, but rather in the soon-to-be. I look disdainfully at the dirty snow piles and make plans for when the days and the weather will meet my expectations. I am sleep walking while awake. I am not fully engaged in life because I am waiting, waiting for the snow to melt, waiting until I can plant new flowers, waiting until I can sit on the back deck and hear the waterfall, waiting to live fully in the glory of spring.

I wonder what I have missed while I have been waiting. If I am not capable of savoring the days I am living now, will I truly appreciate the spring and summer to come, or will I find myself dreaming away the days of hot summer looking forward to the showy splash of color in autumn? Will I look past the beauty of the fall in order to anticipate the crisp touch of cold on my cheeks during a December walk? Will I always long for the season that is to come and never fully enjoy the one I am experiencing?

I am feeling reflective, as I reconnected with an old High School classmate today This contact made realize how quickly seasons have slipped past my notice.

I am resolving to embrace a new motto, the one I saw on a bumper sticker a few months ago, "Today is a gift, that's why they call it the present". I will take the gift of today and enjoy it because I know that eventually, dirty snow piles do melt.